Lawson Software Delivers Enterprise Asset Management Suite to U.S. Energy and Transportation Markets

Business Wire, Jan 9, 2007

Deloitte Consulting LLP to provide implementation-related services

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Lawson Software (Nasdaq:LWSN) today announced it has teamed up with Deloitte Consulting LLP (Deloitte Consulting) to expand the U.S. market for the Lawson Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) suite. The companies will be focusing specifically on the U.S. energy and transportation markets. Lawson Enterprise Asset Management delivers a comprehensive set of applications that helps asset owners, operators and third-party maintenance providers maximize the reliability and availability of a wide range of fixed and mobile assets. This helps companies achieve more uptime and reduce capital and operating costs.

Prior to Lawson's merger with the former Intentia International AB in April 2006, the EAM suite was primarily marketed in the European and Asian markets. The merger has provided the combined company with the ability to participate more aggressively in the U.S. EAM market.

"As the new Lawson, we're making it very clear that a top priority is to add choice to the market and pursue the opportunity to increase the penetration of the Lawson product lines in the U.S.," said Bob Peterson, marketing director for industry markets, Lawson. "We have increased our sales and marketing resources behind a solid EAM suite that helps customers obtain a greater return on their assets and achieve reliability, availability and safety at low cost."

The Lawson alliance with Deloitte Consulting continues a long-standing relationship between the two companies. Deloitte Consulting can help companies accelerate the EAM implementation process and, more importantly, help companies focus on generating value from their EAM programs through its deep industry experience and proprietary tools, such as the Enterprise Value Map for Lawson. The Enterprise Value Map for Lawson is designed to help companies focus on initiatives that can drive shareholder value, while identifying the Lawson applications that enable those initiatives. Additionally, by accessing the full breadth of services offered by the subsidiaries of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, Deloitte Consulting can bring additional capabilities, such as tax advisory and enterprise risk services, to help a company in its efforts to increase value.

"Companies that depend on the reliable and high-level performance of their physical assets are looking for ways to reduce costs, improve performance and better manage risks," said Frank Garvey, a director at Deloitte Consulting and its national Lawson service line leader. "We believe that the combination of Lawson's EAM products and Deloitte Consulting's deep experience in these types of industries can help companies meet these goals."

Lawson Enterprise Asset Management is simple to use and flexible. It can be offered as a best-of-breed solution that can be integrated with other third-party software systems or included in a comprehensive EAM-focused ERP package from Lawson.

Effective asset management capabilities become especially critical as the energy and transportation industries wrestle with business issues that impact their profitability. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance in the energy industry puts more emphasis on tracking asset conditions and notifying stakeholders of potential asset failures or outages that could affect revenue. In transportation, a growing number of operators are focusing on their core business which has led to the rise of third-party maintenance firms. These firms focus heavily on providing customers with low cost, effective asset management while still remaining profitable.

Lawson Enterprise Asset Management provides best-of-breed functionality that can significantly enhance the management of key operational assets. It provides a wide range of applications, including:

* Asset and Component Control - Designed to assist customers in managing complex asset and component information as well as their traceability.

* Preventive Maintenance - Designed to help customers strike a balance between maximum asset reliability and low maintenance costs, and assists in the management of areas such as statutory maintenance needs, inspections and lubrication checks.

* Work Order Processing - Helps maximize equipment uptime and delivery performance by working with work order requests that originate from predefined services or user requirements and can be automatically released to become work orders.

* Diagnostics Management - Enables customers to determine the most effective maintenance strategy for key assets and then automatically monitor the effectiveness of that strategy. Customers can use advanced functions such as cost of prevention versus cost-of-failure analysis.

With the comprehensive EAM-focused ERP package from Lawson, customers receive additional enterprise functionality that is required to support all business processes, including financial management, procurement, human capital management and project management functionality.

The ARC Advisory Group expects the EAM global market to grow from $2.2 billion to $2.8 billion by 2010, according to ARC's "EAM/CMMS Solutions Worldwide Outlook" study. "Companies with fixed and mobile assets are facing an increasingly challenging environment with security requirements, regulatory compliance and aging assets," said Houghton Leroy, EAM research director, ARC Advisory Group. "In the North American market, companies expect increased support and customer service. The Lawson and Deloitte alliance in the U.S. can help deliver the consulting and product expertise required to meet those expectations."