EquaTerra Providing Erste Bank with Procurement Process Transition Support and Governance; Assisted with Strategy/Negotiations on Outsourcing Deal with Accenture

Business Wire, August 24, 2006

LONDON & HOUSTON -- EquaTerra, a multi-national outsourcing and insourcing advisory firm, today announced it assisted Erste Bank on its 10-year procurement outsourcing agreement with Accenture. EquaTerra continues to support Erste Bank - the leading retail and commercial financial services provider to the Central and Eastern European markets - in transitioning procurement processes to Accenture, as well as helping implement Erste Bank's outsourcing management and governance program.

Said Nima Motazed, Chief Procurement Officer at Erste Bank Group, "Our challenge was to implement a group procurement strategy that totally transformed the way we do business. Our selected strategy was to keep for ourselves, in a more efficient organization, the strategic procurement activities, and outsource the more transactional procurement activities to an external third party that would provide us with a robust but standard service delivery model that demonstrates a sound, sustainable cost/value relationship, and captures the full value potential in strategic sourcing, enhanced compliance and operational synergies. It was an enormous undertaking that we could not have completed without EquaTerra's support and guidance."

Under the terms of the 10-year outsourcing agreement, which commenced on July 1, 2006, Accenture is responsible for providing strategic processes and IT solutions for Erste Bank's entire procurement process. The goal of the agreement is to streamline the procurement activities within Erste Bank, which is functionally and geographically decentralized. The bank, headquartered in Austria, has more than 1100 branches across Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary, and international offices in New York, Hong Kong and London.

Patrice Gilles, EquaTerra's Supply Chain Practice Leader, said, "From the initial market knowledge phase through outsourcing strategy, provider down-select and, ultimately, to contract signing, our relationship with Erste Bank has been highly collaborative. We are honored to be working with such a valued client, and look forward to continuing to support them during process transition and in governance-focused activities."

About EquaTerra

EquaTerra sourcing advisors help clients achieve sustainable value in their business processes. With an average of more than 20 years of industry experience in over 600 global transformation and outsourcing projects, our advisors offer unmatched industry expertise. EquaTerra has deep functional knowledge in Finance and Accounting, HR, IT, Procurement and other critical business processes with advisors throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. We help clients achieve significant cost savings and process improvement with outsourcing, internal transformation and shared services solutions. For more information on EquaTerra, please contact Lee Ann Moore at 1 713.669.9292; leeann.moore@equaterra.com; http://www.equaterra.com.