CAP Gemini and Descartes Form Global Alliance to Provide Leading B2B Internet Fulfillment Solutions for Logistics Service Providers and Home Delivery Operations

Business Wire, Dec 20, 1999

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WATERLOO, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 1999

Descartes E-Business Solutions to be featured in Cap Gemini's

Solution Center for Integrated Supply Chain Management

The Descartes Systems Group Inc. (Nasdaq:DSGX) (TSE:DSG), a leading provider of e-business solutions, today announced a strategic alliance with Cap Gemini Group, a leading management and IT consulting company.

Descartes and Cap Gemini will work together to help organizations successfully transform their traditional businesses into e-businesses. The combination of Cap Gemini's business process and integration expertise and Descartes' e-business logistics solutions will provide a powerful end-to-end solution to address the unique, fast-changing requirements of Logistics Service Providers and the Home Delivery industry.

Descartes will also become a partner in Cap Gemini's Solution Center for Integrated Supply Chain Management. Based in Paris, the Solution Center combines Consulting, IT Services, Software and Hardware products in the fields of E-Business, ERP, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management and related topics. The Center is used to hold client workshops that address industry-specific business issues, and Descartes software solutions will be used to demonstrate key technological solutions.

"Through this partnership with Descartes, we are providing our mutual customers and our prospects with high-performance e-business solutions that fit their unique needs and allow them to enter the e-business world with proven solutions," said Gilles Serpry, director of The Supply Networks Center of Excellence at Cap Gemini.

"Descartes is a recognised leading-edge solution vendor with tremendous depth of knowledge and experience in the 3PL and Home Delivery industries. Its customer fulfillment and delivery management solutions are extremely coherent with our vision on how to meet supply chain challenges in the e-business environment. Descartes will enable our customers to manage their order and delivery processes outside their four walls, leveraging the latest Internet, mobile and wireless technologies."

Descartes offers a portfolio of e-business solutions for high-performance fulfilment operations in time-sensitive supply chains. These solutions enable organizations to manage and optimize their order-to-delivery cycle and gain complete, real-time visibility and control over their supply-chain operations.

"Both Descartes and Cap Gemini believe that business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions for Internet fulfillment are critical for companies moving from traditional business models to e-business models," said Art Mesher, Descartes' executive vice president of corporate strategy.

"High-velocity front office systems are readily available in the market. However, taking orders over the Internet through these systems causes a discontinuity between accepting an order and an organisation's ability to deliver what was promised. Currently, most systems being offered by vendors to solve this situation are architecturally designed for different purposes, such as ERP or SCP. By comparison, Descartes' DeliveryNet suites are designed specifically to address the high-velocity, distributed fulfillment problems found in Internet logistics."

About Descartes

Descartes develops e-business solutions for customer fulfillment networks. Descartes' industry-specific, prepackaged solution portfolios and its componentized applications enable companies to create high-performance customer fulfillment networks -- aka DeliveryNets(TM). These solutions empower organizations to deliver reliable, responsive customer service in a profitable manner and to create innovative new products and services. Descartes products are used today by more than 850 companies in 35 vertical industries and 50 countries worldwide. For more information about Descartes, visit http://www.descartes.com.

About Cap Gemini Group

The Cap Gemini Group, European leader in management consulting and IT services, forecasts a 1999 revenue of over 28 billion francs (4.3 billion euros) and has a headcount of 40,000. The Group is present in 20 countries worldwide. For further information: www.capgemini.com.

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