STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sept. 4, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Intentia International AB (publ.) (Stockholm:INTb), a global provider of collaboration and enterprise software and services, said that retailers are finding tremendous value in its collaborative solutions. The Movex suite of collaborative applications enables companies in the retail industry to reap the benefits of aggressive retail merchandising strategies by getting closer to customers' demands and revolutionizing their inventory and supply chain management.
An example of recent success in the retail space, is the contract Intentia signed with Woody, the largest home improvement chain in Sweden. The leading homeimprovement chain sees definite opportunities to increase its competitiveness and efficiency by implementing a complete collaborative solution from Intentia. "Implementing Movex will enable us to increase our market share dramatically within the existing structure," said Ulf Hennings, CEO, Woody Bygghandel AB in a comment, and added, "We will be able to achieve this and still improve our already outstanding customer service thanks to the integrated view of the entire supply chain and customer relationships that Movex brings us."
Intentia has already proven successful in the retail area with customers like Varner Textiles in Norway, COOP Nordic in Sweden and Twilfit in Sweden and expects to make major inroads as a solutions provider in the retail industry, opening up a broad new area for future revenue growth. "Retailers now understand that integrated collaborative solutions are key to providing consumers with better choices and improved profit margins," said Bjorn Algkvist, President and CEO of Intentia. "Movex offers a broad range of medium and large-scale retailers the ideal solution for the challenges they face."
Movex Brings the Collaborative Revolution to Retail "Retailers of all kinds are facing heavy competition and narrowing margins. The path to success depends on being able to forecast the specific products that customers want and deliver them efficiently. This means being able to predict, plan and deliver a highly differentiated set of products that meet customer requirements in each store and ebusiness channel, being able to change the product mix rapidly, and realizing efficiencies throughout the supply chain. Only a complete collaborative solution like Movex can integrate and bring all the pieces together," said Johan Berg, President of Intentia Research and Development.
Movex has several distinguishing features that are particularly attractive to retailers. With its large transaction capacity, Movex enables retailers to handle efficiently a large variety of differentiated items in stores, warehouses and throughout the supply chain. By using Efficient Consumer Response techniques and the advanced Supply Chain Planning and Execution features in Movex, changes in customer demand can be understood better and predicted faster.
One important issue for the modern retail chain is to be able to combine local creative entrepreneurship with the benefits of a centrally managed organization for purchasing and logistics. Movex gives retailers unique dynamic solutions to different degrees of centralization, both within a company and between a company and its suppliers. "Enabling collaboration inside and outside a company is at the heart of the Intentia Solution," argued Johan Berg.
Retailers that use Movex have the flexibility to change how business processes are organized and information is shared in order to stay ahead of the market. The advanced functionality of Movex Customer Relationship Management creates and captures final consumer demand through a wide range of communications channels. Point-of-sale integration will, of course, be part of a complete business solution, but without the excess front-nd business logic that increases cost and system vulnerability. "Movex capabilities provide complete visibility from the perspectives of the individual store, the company and the entire supply chain," continued Berg.
Getting Ahead in a Fast Changing Industry According to leading retail industry consultant, Kurt Salmon Associates, "The new species of retailer will abandon generic product assortments in favor of those tailored by customer, region and door profile. Key to any product assortment is having the right products in stock at the right time. Leading edge forecasting, a fast and flexible supply chain, smart inventory planning and accurate data will prevent stock outs." (KSA, "Soft Goods Retailing 2003: Survival of the Focused," Aug. 2002)
Movex addresses these imperatives directly. "Intentia believes that retailers' greatest needs are to be able to measure and predict customer demand in each location, and to be able to supply those demands rapidly and efficiently with advanced inventory and supply chain planning and execution. Flexibility is needed at all levels, with varying degrees of centralization and decentralization. The entire process needs to be open to collaboration," noted Johan Berg. "With our Supply Chain Planning and Execution functionality alone, Intentia can demonstrate increases in product delivery accuracy from 70 percent to 99 percent and reductions in stock levels of 50 percent," he added.
Movex builds on Intentia's technology leadership in collaborative and enterprise applications. As the only true enterprise and collaboration solution written in Java, Movex is especially attractive to retailers since it can work across customers' existing IT infrastructures. The 'thin client' interface means that it can be implemented at the individual store level without massive hardware investments. "Other retail industry solutions provide highly specific functionality that is not well integrated into the company's core systems, or is cumbersome and expensive to install and maintain. Movex combines total integration, collaborative tools and the flexibility and costeffectiveness that can help companies execute aggressive retailing strategies that increase customer satisfaction and improve profitability," concluded Berg.
Bjorn Algkvist estimates that the retail sector could rapidly become one of the most important industry sectors for Intentia. "I expect Intentia will be able to achieve the same kind of leadership in the retail industry that we have developed in the fashion and food and beverage industries," noted Algkvist.
About Intentia
Intentia is one of the world's leading suppliers of collaboration solutions. Our vision is to become the leading global collaboration solutions vendor by supplying our customers with tomorrow's solutions today. Intentia offers a onestop shop for all collaboration needs within numerous industry segments. We develop, implement and maintain our own solutions to produce the highest possible level of customer satisfaction. The Intentia Solution consists of applications covering customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise management (ENM), supply chain management (SCM), business performance measurement (BPM), e‑business and value chain collaboration (VCC). Intentia has more than 3,200 employees and serves over 3,400 customers in the manufacturing, maintenance and distribution industries via a global network spanning some 40 countries. Intentia is a public company traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (XSSE) under the symbol INT B.
Visit Intentia's Web site at www.intentia.com