i2 New-Generation Customer Order Management Suite Helps Companies Achieve New Levels of Excellence in Complex Order Management Environments

Business Wire, Nov 14, 2006

Designed to Help Companies Synchronize Their Sales and Supply Chain Organizations by Providing Continuously Optimized Execution of Order Processes

DALLAS -- In the new world order the customer is king, and has become smarter and more demanding. Customers expect precise delivery and price quotes, perfect order execution, demand visibility to any potential issues with delivery and fulfillment, and they expect a clean, consolidated invoice regardless of your internal system challenges. Faced with these rising customer expectations, the order management and fulfillment process is now where the "rubber meets the road" for a company. The Customer Order Management suite from i2 Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:ITWO) can help companies overcome these obstacles and achieve unprecedented levels of customer service while serving as the engine to drive performance, accelerate cash flow and fuel growth.

"i2 best suits customers who seek an order hub among disparate systems and require complex order fulfillment processes," writes R "Ray" Wang with John Ragsdale and Ian Schuler in the Forrester Wave Vendor Summary, Q2 2006, "i2 Is a Very Strong Performer in Order Hubs." Among the 12 solutions evaluated, the solution scored the highest in order capture to order fulfillment processes. "Availability to promise and the complex fulfillment processes stand out as best in class."

The Customer Order Management suite enables companies to better manage the complexities of the complete order to fulfillment business process. The solutions are packaged to address the major process areas of order management including: quote-to-order, order-to-fulfillment and order lifecycle visibility.

Business Challenge

Increased complexities in products, configurations, channels, and ever changing supply chains present significant roadblocks to archive excellence while presenting a unified customer experience. This is compounded by a lack of coordination, limited visibility and difficult collaboration across the myriad of partners, systems and solutions typically involved as an order progresses through its lifecycle: quoting, configuration, pricing, validation, scheduling, sourcing, fulfillment, service, invoicing and returns.

Acquisitions, process and product differences, varying customer preferences, regional nuances and a legacy of regional or specialized point-to-point fulfillment solutions create an environment where global order, capacity and inventory visibility with coordinated multi-enterprise fulfillment becomes an impossibility. A company's extended supply chain should be its most strategic customer service weapon to address this challenge, but the legacy of enterprise resource planning (ERP) installations has left most having to sacrifice order management and supply chain integration in favor of internal alignment with a financial set of books. While this speeds month-end financial consolidation, it offers nothing to the customer when asking the question "Where is my order?" i2's Customer Order Fulfillment Suite cuts through this maze by simplifying and coordinating complex interactions and processes, while bringing the full capabilities of the extended supply chain into the order quote to fulfillment process.

"As a company attempts to keep up with global trade growth, mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing and increased competitive pressures, they inevitably find they need more flexible, integrated processes and systems that focus on coordinating operational activities to sustain, and even drive new levels of customer satisfaction and revenue growth," said i2 Vice President of Solutions Strategy Jim Caudill. "i2's Customer Order Management suite allows companies to deploy strategic order management and fulfillment solutions to meet its unique and frequently changing business needs."

Benefits of the i2 Customer Order Management suite include:

* ability to allocate, promise and source to configuration, capacity and availability;

* global visibility into demand, supply, capacity and capabilities across the supply chain;

* shortening of the quote-to-cash process to increase revenues and accelerate cash flow;

* an answer to the question, "Where is my order?" by providing a process-centric, 360 degree view of each order - even when serviced by other divisions, intermediaries, interdependencies, and across multi-echelon value chains;

* support an "order from anywhere, fulfill from anywhere, return to anywhere" strategy to meet the dynamic multi-channel selling models;

* ability to leverage existing systems and solutions investments.

Additionally, by offloading complex processes to the i2 Customer Order Management suite, an organization can more rapidly realize the promised financial benefits of ERP rationalization and standardization. This is a key characteristic of all i2 new-generation solutions, allowing companies to better leverage their existing technology investments without facing a lengthy, expensive and risky rip-and-replace strategy.

Built on the i2 Agile Business Process Platform