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Plumtree Creates New Solutions Group to Develop, Market and Sell
Portal-Based Retail Applications
Customers Applebee's International, Groupe Casino, Hy-Vee and O'Charley's
Deploy Plumtree-Powered Retail Applications
CHICAGO, Retail Systems 2004 Conference/ICS Collaborative Commerce, May 19
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Enterprise Web leader Plumtree Software today
launched a new retail solutions group to develop, market and sell
Plumtree-powered solutions to the retail industry. Staffed with sales,
marketing and engineering professionals, the group is focused on working with
retail-focused services and software companies to build solutions for store
performance management, associate productivity and retention and supplier
collaboration. By using Plumtree's portal, integration and collaboration
software to build these solutions, retailers can easily combine data and
functionality from many existing systems, giving the stores one simple way to
get everything they need to drive revenues.
Already, retail customers including Applebee's International, Groupe Casino,
Hy-Vee O'Charley's and several Fortune 500 companies have deployed Plumtree to
improve store performance and supplier relationships. Several Plumtree retail
customers have been recognized publicly for the innovative nature of their
Plumtree deployments. Most recently, Staples was named a World Class Solution
finalist by DM Review and a finalist in the Retail Systems Achievement Award
presented by Retail Systems Alert Group and Chain Store Age and sponsored by
Intel, Microsoft and JDA.
Plumtree will host a Web seminar for retailers featuring AMR Research on June
16th. AMR will discuss how leading retail organizations are taking a Six Sigma
approach to store performance optimization, and what role a portal can play in
standardizing operational execution across stores. Plumtree will provide store
management insights from its retail customers and their store portal
deployments. Register at http://www.plumtree.com/04/retail.
As part of its retail initiative, Plumtree today announced a retail focus to
its Applications Incubator partner program, released a retail deployment case
study profiling Plumtree customer Hy-Vee, available at
http://www.plumtree.com/04/hy-vee, and released Forrester's March 2004 case
study "Learning from Best Buy's Employee Portal," available at
http://www.plumtree.com/04/Bestbuy. Plumtree is also presenting its portal
solutions for retail at the Retail Systems 2004 Conference and the NRF 94th
Annual Convention.
"Plumtree's new retail solutions group is part of a larger company initiative
to deliver portal-based applications that solve specific business problems,"
said Plumtree CEO John Kunze. "Plumtree will continue to sell technology
products to IT, but we believe our industry initiatives together with our
applications focus can create exciting new opportunities for Plumtree to sell
targeted solutions to line-of-business executives."
Why Plumtree for Retail Applications?
One of the primary reasons that retail customers choose Plumtree is for its
ability to incorporate services from diverse systems, programmed in diverse
languages. Forrester recognized this Plumtree differentiator in its recent case
study mentioned above.
Retail customers also choose the Plumtree Enterprise Web Suite because it can:
-- Deliver information based on role, geography or department: Plumtree
integrates access and profile information from any user directory or
enterprise application, enabling retailers to easily secure and
customize the user experience for store managers, associates, suppliers
and corporate employees.
-- Manage applications for many audiences through one framework: Plumtree
allows retailers to build and secure store management, supplier
collaboration and employee services applications separately, yet share
services and provide a common look and feel across them all.
-- Provide for two-way communication and collaboration: Retailers use
Plumtree's content publishing and collaboration services to gather
feedback and publish best practices from associates and store managers,
as well as to manage joint calendars, task lists and documents with
suppliers.
-- Be deployed to wireless devices or low-bandwidth environments:
Retailers can roll out Plumtree-powered applications to a range of
devices they may already use including POS systems, kiosks, PDA's, or
tablet PC's. To accommodate the low network bandwidth to many retail
outlets, Plumtree provides a low-bandwidth user interface option.
Retail Customers Build High Performance Store Management and Supplier
Collaboration Applications
According to feedback from Plumtree customers and industry analysts, the
following three applications address some of the most pressing retail problems.
Improving Store Manager Productivity
Analysts agree that the more time a store manager spends on the sales floor,
the better the store performs. But store managers often spend long hours at the
PC, on the phone, or sorting through FedEx pouches in the back office to meet
corporate demands. Using Plumtree, retailers can assemble everything their
store managers need to optimize store performance in one application, including
the ability to:
-- View, drill-down and act on sales, labor and inventory metrics;
-- Manage store hiring, training, scheduling, rewards and recognition;
-- Act on tasks, alerts and shared best practices; and
-- View advertising and store-specific calendars, planograms, rebates,
coupons, policies and procedures.
Applebee's, the largest casual-dining chain in the United States with over
1,600 restaurants, chose Plumtree as the framework for creating a store
management application that serves franchisees and will serve company-owned
restaurants. Restaurant operators use the store management application to
evaluate progress of customer satisfaction metrics and to access best practices
for operations, guest experience, food quality and bar service while
franchisees use the portal to get the most up-to-date product information and
to report sales for promotions, like WeightWatchers meals. The application
helps Applebee's save on printing and mail costs and allows for more dynamic
communication across corporate offices, franchises and company-owned stores.
Building Loyal, Experienced Sales Associates
According to most industry estimates, average store employee turnover can range
from 60-110 percent a year. Retailers can thus benefit greatly from solutions
that ramp up associates faster and encourage associate feedback, helping garner
loyalty and longer tenure. Using Plumtree as the framework for a sales
associate productivity and retention application, retailers are able to
assemble all of the communications, training and customer service tools that
they want to put in the hands of sales associates. Associates can:
-- Access online training, submit HR benefits, and read forms and
policies;
-- Search for product information including pricing, specifications and
competition;
-- Trade shifts, submit overtime and time off requests;
-- View company announcements and news;
-- Participate in employee surveys, submit best practices and feedback;
and
-- Track promotions, store performance metrics and store-specific
calendars.
Hy-Vee and several of Plumtree's Fortune 500 customers have created successful
store associate applications in their Enterprise Web deployments.
Collaborating More Efficiently With Suppliers
As part of the ongoing challenge to compete with the industry leaders,
retailers are working to make their supply chain relationships more efficient.
With Plumtree's framework, retailers can create a portal-based application for
sharing information and automating processes with suppliers. Using the
application, suppliers can:
-- View or change order status and monitor product inventory by store;
-- View joint promotions calendars and provide feedback and ideas;
-- Get pricing information, policies, procedures and documentation; and
-- Search for contacts at the retailer.
Groupe Casino, a leading food retailer in France and owner of the Smart & Final
wholesale retail chain in the United States, recently purchased the Plumtree
Enterprise Web Suite. In the first deployment phase, the buying and supply
chain department will streamline management of its relationships with 7,000
suppliers through a collaborative application. In one place, suppliers will be
able to export Groupe Casino orders as XML documents for easy entry into their
own systems, access delivery procedures and other documentation, and provide
delivery notes so that Groupe Casino can more precisely plan its warehouse
labor needs.
About Plumtree Software
Plumtree Software is the Enterprise Web leader. Plumtree's mission is to create
a comprehensive Web environment for employees, customers and partners across
the enterprise to interact with different systems and work together. Plumtree's
Enterprise Web solution consists of integration products for bringing resources
from traditional systems together on the Web, shared services such as
collaboration, content management and search for building new Web applications,
and a portal platform for delivering these Web applications to broad audiences.
Plumtree's independence and its Web Services Architecture allow this solution
to span rival platforms and systems, helping maximize customers' return on
their existing technology investments. With offices in more than a dozen
countries, Plumtree has licensed over 600 customers, including Boeing, Ford
Motor Company, Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Navy. For more information, visit
Plumtree on the Web at http://www.plumtree.com/.
NOTE: Plumtree is a registered trademark of Plumtree Software, Inc. and/or its
subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries. All other registered and
unregistered trademarks in this document are the sole property of their
respective owners.
Press Contact:
Carilu Dietrich
Plumtree Software
415-399-7047
DATASOURCE: Plumtree Software
CONTACT: Carilu Dietrich of Plumtree Software, +1-415-399-7047, or
Web site: http://www.plumtree.com/