Source: Aberdeen Group - Boston

Supply Chain Executives Representing Over $17.8 Billion in Transportation Spend Gathered at Aberdeen's Supply Chain Management Summit

Attendees Shared Strategies to Overcome Global Supply Chain Management Challenges and Celebrated Peer Achievement Awards; New Synergies Identified Between Supply Chain and Financial Executives

BOSTON, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 10, 2007 -- Aberdeen Group today announced that supply chain management (SCM) and financial executives representing over $17.8 billion in transportation spend met last week at the SCM Summit to outline critical components of global supply chain management, including live research with the executives on hand. Attendees from North America, the European Union, and Asia-Pacific shared how new organizational and technology strategies are enabling their organizations to improve financial performance and increase market share.

"Successful companies are embracing Generation 3 principles of supply chain management," stated Beth Enslow, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Research at Aberdeen. "While first-generation SCM focused on department-level efficiencies and second-generation SCM brought order and cost-cutting within an enterprise, Generation 3 SCM is orchestrating multi-party processes that span the end-to-end supply chain to drive strategic market benefit for companies. This is requiring centralized supply chain organizations that work hand-in-hand with their CFOs and Treasurers to drive profitable growth and market agility for their companies."

The focus on multi-party supply chain transformations is consistent with new Aberdeen research that finds that 85% of companies are currently focused on creating new supply chain innovations or looking to adopt best practices, supported by an increase in supply chain technology spending.

Results from the onsite instant polling of the supply chain executives revealed some quick statistics about the Summit audience: 

--  52% of participants are most focused on improving their supply chain's
    transparency/visibility in 2007.
--  Multi-tier inventory management is earmarked as the area with the most
    opportunity for improvement and business impact.
--  53% of participants are actively using or investigating Supply Chain
    Finance techniques to lower end-to-end costs.
--  41% of participants are currently using or evaluating Software as a
    Service (on-demand applications) for supply chain management.
Participants walked away with actionable supply chain recommendations from executive best-in-class presenters from: IBM Integrated Supply Chain, Target Corporation, Boeing, Nike, Under Armour, Agilent Technologies, Wrigley, Anritsu, Williams-Sonoma, Boston Scientific, Raytheon, Supply Chain Executive Advisors, MIT, and Nypro Inc.

During the proceedings, Aberdeen presented five companies with Supply Chain Management Achievement Awards. The award winners were as follows: 

--  Renault received the Executive Stewardship Award for achieving
    performance heights due to the direct involvement and leadership of
    executive management.
    
--  Panasonic received the Process Excellence Award for demonstrating
    process ingenuity, agility, flexibility, and scalability in addressing
    changing business requirements.
    
--  Boeing received the Business Evolution Award for managing information
    flow across internal functional practices to achieve measurable business
    growth.
    
--  Proctor & Gamble received the Innovation in Technology Award for
    maximizing technology solutions to solve pressing supply chain issues in
    order to positively impact company performance.
    
--  Agilent Technologies accepted the Performance Excellence Award for
    harnessing the performance impact of supply chain activities and mastering
    methodologies for financial, operational, and customer-centric performance
    excellence.
The Summit's overall focus was on how companies are transforming their physical and financial supply chains in the face of globalization, with discussion on topics such as: transitioning to a centralized supply chain organization; improving supply chain visibility; new inventory management approaches; breakthroughs in supply chain finance; and supply chain compliance and risk management strategies. "We were pleased to be the catalyst bringing together the leading supply chain, financial, and other key executives to share experiences of successful supply chain transformation," said Beth Enslow, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Research at Aberdeen.

Summit sponsors included: HSBC, TradeBeam, Infor, PowerTrack, Archstone Consulting, GT Nexus, Red Prairie, Loftware, Voxware, and Harte-Hanks.

For additional information on the summit, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/events/live/GSC07/

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to AberdeenTM for insights that drive decisions. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Beth Enslow Aberdeen Harte-Hanks 519-883-1430 Beth.enslow@aberdeen.com