Perfect Commerce Unveils Perfect Sourcing 3; Most Mature Strategic Sourcing Solution for Global 2000

Business Wire, June 4, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 4, 2001

Perfect Commerce, the leading strategic sourcing solution provider, today announced Perfect Sourcing(TM) 3. This Private Sourcing Exchange (PSX) system puts the enterprise strategic sourcing process on line. By enabling rich negotiation on many attributes, not simply on price, Perfect Sourcing solves one of the greatest problems in e-procurement -- inducing suppliers to participate in a private exchange.

Perfect Sourcing 3 consists of Perfect Buyer(TM) and Perfect Supplier(TM). The product suite contains forty major enhancements based on two years of exhaustive customer feedback. Concurrently, Perfect Commerce is unveiling major new releases of the Perfect Process Designer(TM) and Perfect Insight(TM), the companion products that allow Perfect Sourcing to be implemented in less than two weeks.

"With the release of Perfect Sourcing 3.0, Perfect Commerce has transcended its role in providing advanced negotiation tools by providing a full e-sourcing suite to the enterprise," said Pierre Mitchell, service director, and Enterprise Management Strategies for AMR Research. "The application now sports flexible attribute modeling, an intuitive user interface, and an analytical data model for spending analysis."

According to customer Timothy Pownell, general manager, e-Procurement Project at Unocal Corporation (NYSE:UCL), "Unocal has set aggressive goals for its e-business programs, and the use of Perfect's sourcing products is an important part of our strategy to meet those goals."

"Considering the current economic conditions, we expect the latest version of Perfect Sourcing to resonate well with large enterprises that are looking to cut costs and improve supply chain operations," said Tim Minahan, managing director of Supply Chain research at the Aberdeen Group.

"Customers built Perfect Sourcing 3," said Kevin Surace, president & CEO of Perfect Commerce. "They told us they needed a system that could migrate personal sourcing relationships on line, leverage investments of existing supply chain systems, and institutionalize sourcing best practices. When Perfect Sourcing 3 was born we knew we nailed it."

Three Areas of Process Improvement in Perfect Sourcing 3:

      One: Migrate Traditional Personal Relationships and Processes On
    Line
      The goal is to emulate the way real buyers and sellers
    traditionally do business, where human judgment, intuition and
    relationships are critically important.

      Two: Leverage Investments In Real Time, Purchasing and Supply
      Chain Systems
      The goal is to leverage existing systems to benefit the sourcing
    process.

      Three: Institutionalize Best Practice Improvement
      The goal is to leverage and institutionalize best practices across
    skill levels, business units and geographies.

New Features & Benefits in Perfect Sourcing 3

      Robust Negotiation Support Beyond Price
      Buyers and suppliers can conduct unlimited counter offers on any
    criteria, not just price, e.g. on deal criteria (such as delivery
    terms) or item criteria (such as purity). All offers and counter
    offers are re-scored and ranked by the Perfect Decision Engine.
    All messages and negotiation histories are maintained and viewable
    for accountability and review.

      Enhanced Decision Engine Optimization
      The Perfect Decision Engine optimizes for quantity splits between
    suppliers. In addition, suggested orders can enforce minimum
    quantities for suppliers and can guarantee that special
    circumstances are taken into account, e.g. pre-existing
    relationships with key suppliers.

      Flexible Private Exchange Rules
      Buyers can set up a sourcing event as completely open bid;
    completely closed bid, or any of several intermediate settings,
    including allowing suppliers to see the relative ranking of their
    offers. Competitive visibility is completely under buyer control.

      Rich Collaboration Features
      Buyers and suppliers can collaborate on RFQ issuance, response and
    offer management. They can delegate RFQ ownership to colleagues or
    save draft RFQs for review by a colleague, prior to submitting the
    RFQ to suppliers.

      Up-to-Date Supplier Ratings
      Historical delivery performance, 3rd party ratings and other
    ratings can be weighted and factored into the decision. Also,
    other supplier attributes such as support for collaborative design
    may be included in the scoring of the supplier's offer.

      Enhanced Document Management
      Buyers and suppliers can exchange and modify documents (such as
    CAD files or data sheets etc.) at all points in the sourcing
    process. Documents can also be included as attachments, or
    referenced elsewhere via support for URL document pointers.

      Workflow and Delivery Schedule Handling
      RFQ specifications can include detailed line item specific
    delivery schedules. Each delivery schedule can have unlimited
    dates, delivery locations and requested quantities. The supplier's
    ability to meet these workflow criteria is included in the
    scoring.

      Real Time Notification of Sourcing Events
      Several forms of real-time notification are available. Buyers can
    be paged when a new offer or counter offer is received, or
    suppliers can be e-mailed when a new RFQ is created that is
    appropriate for them.

      Real Time Desktop Manager
      Both buyers and suppliers monitor the real-time flow of sourcing
    activity through a window display that provides constant access to
    the latest RFQ, offer and counter offer activity.

      Best Practices Management
      End users, group managers and central sourcing organizations can
    easily create RFQ templates from scratch or by using an existing
    RFQ as a model. Templates rolled out across an organization save
    data entry and promote the enforcement of standards. Templates
    ensure best practice usage for buyers of different skill levels,
    in differing business units and in dispersed geographies.

      Roles and Accountability
      Buyers can be assigned roles and authorities that require approval
    beyond certain sourcing limits. This institutionalizes best
    negotiation and sourcing practices and improves accountability.

The Perfect Sourcing 3 Product Suite

These products are available immediately as either a hosted solution
(ASP) or as an on-premises licensed software product. The system can
be up and running in under two weeks.

      Perfect Buyer(TM) and Perfect Supplier(TM) Deliver Sourcing the
    Way Real People Do Business
      Perfect Buyer and Perfect Supplier enable people to do business
    naturally, expressing trade-offs and focusing the negotiation on
    what is really important.

      Perfect Insight 3 Delivers Spend, Sourcing Process, and Supplier
    Analytics
      Perfect Insight 3 is targeted at the business intelligence needs
    of top financial, procurement and sourcing management. Starting
    with high-level spend, sourcing process and supplier metrics,
    managers can drill down into the underlying rationale of
    purchasing decisions and performance drivers. Perfect Insight's
    data warehouse is automatically built and fed by Perfect Sourcing,
    making it effortless to receive world-class procurement analytics.

      Perfect Process Designer 3 Delivers "Zero Engineering"
    Configuration
      Unlike competitors' use of SDK's requiring ongoing engineering and
    consultants for changes, Perfect Process Designer is the basis of
    the Perfect Sourcing "Configure and Go" tailoring method, allowing
    non-technical personnel to configure (and later to re-configure,
    as necessary) Perfect Sourcing with the particulars of their
    unique sourcing process, categories, and needs without any
    engineering.

      Professional Services Provides Total Process Support
      In-house experts in strategic sourcing are available for any
    necessary work in analyzing the spec-to-select process;
    implementation and training; and on-going support.