Liz Claiborne Taps HP for Technology Makeover: Transformation 2000 and Data Warehousing; Apparel Giant Chooses Replace over Fix for Y2000 Problems

Business Wire, March 17, 1997

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 1997--Hewlett- Packard Company today announced it has been chosen by fashion industry giant Liz Claiborne, Inc. to replace current operational systems with new HP 9000 Enterprise Servers running state-of-the-art packaged applications. The deal also includes an HP-based data warehouse for Liz Claiborne's centralized decision-support requirements.

Like most businesses today, Liz Claiborne is faced with what to do about the millions of lines of legacy application code that will fail to perform correctly any calculations that involve a date after Dec. 31, 1999. The company's current systems also do not support the operational effectiveness, reduction in cycle time and complexity needed to move forward in today's fast-moving business world. To fix this problem, Liz Claiborne's IS department has launched a major effort, called "Transformation 2000," to rebuild its strategic business applications over the next 3 years.

"We're positioning ourselves to meet the growing, sophisticated needs of the retail industry and supply channel," said John Thompson, senior vice president and chief information officer at Liz Claiborne. "Liz Claiborne's technology will change more in the next three years than it has in its entire collective history as we move to an open-systems environment."

Paul Charron, chairman and chief executive officer, said he believes technology will deliver the efficiencies in cycle-time reductions mandated by a corporatewide re-engineering campaign and has challenged Liz Claiborne's Information Systems organization to implant applications for the next millennium.

WHY LIZ CLAIBORNE CHOSE HP AS TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

Because of the enormity of Transformation 2000, the ability to mitigate risk was essential to Liz Claiborne's selection of a strategic technology partner, according to Thompson. "We need an organization with significant resources, superb technology and an understanding of change management," said Thompson. HP's products and services reputation and strong partnerships with other industry leaders helped HP win against the competition.

But risk was not the only factor in the decision equation. Liz Claiborne says it sees Transformation 2000 success as a fully updated, open corporate-computing infrastructure and a new data warehouse accessible by all of its worldwide entities. According to the company, technology played a big role in the ultimate decision. HP, the open-systems leader and a top platform for data warehousing, won in this category.

HP had significant competition for Claiborne's business and aggressively demonstrated its competence in all areas, including cost of ownership.

THE NEW ENVIRONMENT

Liz Claiborne and HP already have begun the transformation from the current legacy-application environment to state-of-the-art packaged client/server applications running on HP 9000 K-class servers. All of the mission-critical financial, warehouse management and core business applications will run on HP hardware.

These applications will feed a centralized data warehouse decision-support system. Centralized decision support has long been a goal of Liz Claiborne, according to John Sullivan, vice president of Information Systems at Liz Claiborne. He likes the fact that decision makers all over the company will be "on the same page with one version of the truth" when making business decisions. An HP Enterprise Parallel Server, EPS 22, was the platform of choice because of its scaleability.

"We know we need to get a system in place quickly, but we will not compromise quality, and we must have a system that can grow and transform with us," said Sullivan. "The EPS 22 fits perfectly into our Transformation 2000 plans."

LIZ CLAIBORNE'S VISION OF THE FUTURE

Claiborne says it intends to establish information technology as a core competency of the company and is implementing an architecture for the next millennium. "Our strategy is to implement prepackaged software and achieve the seamless integration found in enterprise solutions with the functional quality of best-of-breed applications," said Sullivan. "In years ahead, the industry is likely to find Liz Claiborne setting a leadership position for technology much the same way it establishes standards for fashion apparel and accessories."

Liz Claiborne, one of the most dominant names in the women's apparel industry, designs and markets an array of women's clothing and accessories, men's sportswear and furnishings, and fragrances. A staple brand for leading department stores, Liz products are manufactured and sold all over the world.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing, communications and measurement products and services recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 112,800 employees and had revenue of $38.4 billion in its 1996 fiscal year.

Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com .

CONTACT: Hewlett-Packard Company

Scott Hauan, 408/447-1415