Retek Data Warehouse With Microstrategy Front End Attracts Leading Retailers Worldwide

Business Wire, Oct 10, 1997

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 6, 1997--

Hills Stores, Storehouse and Michaels Among Retailers Who Have

Selected the Vertical Product Offering to Improve Customer

Service and Optimize Profitability

MicroStrategy, the largest relational on-line analytical processing (ROLAP) vendor, and Retek Information Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of HNC Software Inc. and a leading supplier of enterprise-wide retail management solutions, today announced that the Retek Data Warehouse(TM) (RDW) with MicroStrategy's DSS Agent(TM) has been chosen by a growing number of the world's most prestigious retailers. Since its introduction in August, the following eight companies have selected the RDW version 1.5 to analyze their transaction-level data to improve customer service and optimize profitability:

-- HILLS STORES - With $2.0 billion (US) in annual sales, Hills Stores is a discount retailer with over 150 stores in the Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic United States.

-- BHS/STOREHOUSE - With $2.0 billion in annual sales, BHS/Storehouse is a fashion/department store in the UK with 120 stores.

-- MICHAELS - Michaels is the world's largest retailer of arts, crafts, and decorative supplies, with over 450 stores and $1.4 billion in annual sales.

-- FNAC - A $2 billion (US) retailer of electronics and appliances, FNAC operates over 50 stores throughout France.

-- MAURICES - An $800 million fashion retailer, Maurices is based in Minnesota and has over 80 stores across the Midwestern US.

-- EDGARS - Edgars is a leading fashion retailer in South Africa with over $1.3 billion (US) in annual revenue and 650 stores.

-- CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY -Central News Agency is a $260 million (US) retailer of books and magazines in South Africa.

-- GAME DISCOUNT WORLD - Game Discount World is an $250 million (US) discount merchandiser based in South Africa with 22 stores.

The Retek Data Warehouse, an "out of the box retail solution" integrated with MicroStrategy's proven decision support technology, is tuned and tailored specifically for the retail industry by the retail experts at Retek. The RDW allows retailers to analyze their day-to-day transaction data along with inventory positions, merchandise and promotional performance, vendor performance and other organizational indicators to help retailers make more informed and timely decisions. Companies have selected the Retek Data Warehouse because it allows them to identify customer buying patterns, helping them tailor their product offerings to customers' tastes and preferences. By giving retailers the tools to identify slow movers and strong turners, the RDW also helps retailers keep the optimal amount of inventory in stock in each of their stores.

With MicroStrategy's DSS Agent as the front-end analysis tool, RDW users are provided with over 300 customized reports and 500 pre-built metrics to analyze their overall performance and merchandising decisions. Retailers run and build reports using standard industry terminology, eliminating the need for them to be familiar with the underlying data warehouse structure. All reports are customizable for each retailer's particular needs. Retek's expertise and singular focus on retail guarantees that the RDW is designed specifically for retailers, with built-in retail metrics, business practices, and key performance indicators.

"With the RDW, the need to try to shoehorn a generic data warehousing solution into a retail box is eliminated. The RDW is built for retailers who need to be on the cutting edge of leveraging information within their organization," says Kurt Waltenbaugh, Director of Product Strategy for Retek. Using the packaged DSS application built with MicroStrategy's product line also dramatically reduces the time it usually takes to develop and deploy a data warehouse.

"We are very excited about the overwhelming market acceptance of this product," says Sanju K. Bansal, chief operating officer at MicroStrategy. "The demand for the RDW demonstrates retailers' need to analyze SKU-level information to better manage inventory, control costs, and operate efficiently. This robust, high-end data warehousing solution provided by MicroStrategy and Retek is allowing retailers to enhance their profitability in an increasingly competitive marketplace."

"Retailers are looking for a prepackaged, retail-specific data warehousing solution that immediately gives them the information they need to improve their business processes," says John Buchanan, President & CEO at Retek. "Retek Data Warehouse exceeds those needs by integrating MicroStrategy's scalable DSS product line with Retek's industry expertise. Together, we are providing a complete solution that allows retailers to navigate easily through large amounts of the most detailed data in order to find relevant business insights."

About MicroStrategy, Inc.

MicroStrategy is the leading provider of industrial-strength decision support products for developing and accessing data warehouses.

As the Relational OLAP (ROLAP) industry pioneer, MicroStrategy has delivered a series of technology breakthroughs including high-performance, multidimensional OLAP analysis directly from relational databases; VLDB drivers for terabyte-range scalability; a multipass SQL generation engine; fully functional OLAP and decision support over the World Wide Web; and the first management and monitoring tool for administering VLDB and web-based DSS applications.