Benchmarking Partners Transforms Itself to Surgency; New Brand Captures Company's Insurgent Philosophy and Attitude.

Business/Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2000

Reflecting the new e-business dynamics of change, speed, and urgency, Benchmarking Partners, Inc., today announced a brand name change to Surgency(TM), Inc. Since being founded in 1994, Benchmarking Partners has been the leading strategy services firm at the core of business and technology transformation that has become e-business. Since then, the company has evolved into a Net-based model that dramatically accelerates the transformation of enterprises and ecosystems through the development and implementation of e-business strategy products and services. Two strategic partners, Cisco(R) Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) and the Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ: ICGE), have been instrumental in the company's pioneering approach to redefining the value proposition for professional services.

"Our goal is to accelerate our customers' e-business and ecosystem transformation," said Ted Rybeck, Surgency's chairman and founder. "Ecosystems are people, processes, organizations, and competencies that are united through technology to provide a particular service or product to our customers. We provide significant value for our clients by helping them build ecosystems that can adapt to the constantly changing business and technological realities of the surge economy."

Leading companies, such as Ariba(R)Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA), EMC(R)Corp (NYSE: EMC), FedEx (NYSE: FDX), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and WAL-MART Stores (NYSE: WMT), have partnered with Surgency to develop and execute e-business strategies. Surgency implements these strategies by creating collaborative environments and tools to accelerate knowledge transfer and organizational alignment, by building business information architecture systems that support collaboration, and by creating scalable market-facing platforms that increase sales leverage.

Paul de Janosi, Surgency's president and CEO explained, "The combination of our content-centric approach with our collaborative environments and tools accelerates customer knowledge transfer and increases the impact of go-to-market initiatives. Surgency is about leveraging the energy and focus of the new economy while retaining the key value elements of the old economy for our customers."

Surgency Expertise

At the forefront of acquiring, generating, and transferring e-business knowledge, Surgency's content-centric expertise comes from:

--transformational engagements with e-business thought leaders;

--in-depth content development of industry best practices;

--experienced subject matter experts; and

--industry associations and top educational institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and Stanford University.

This expertise enables Surgency to channel e-business innovation into surging new business opportunities for its clients.

The Surgency Identity

The Surgency name, a combination of surge and urgency, represents the force of today's surging business environment and the speed and impact our clients require. Surgency is also a derivation of "insurgent," which is an accurate descriptor of the attitude of the firm's clients and the market-leading companies they represent. The company and its individual thought leaders can also be defined as insurgents because of the revolutionary impact they have on clients. Surgency's logo visually represents the changes in varying energy streams. This new design depicts the surging interplay between the technology and business forces of continual change and the way Surgency helps clients align this energy to maximize their e-business potential.

Frankfurt Balkind (New York and San Francisco), a leading cross-disciplinary agency, created the new name and design. "The name is unique among Surgency's competitors in that it embodies its philosophy and attitude. It is a radically

different approach to identity, mirroring Surgency's revolutionary approach to e-transformation," stated Aubrey Balkind, CEO of Frankfurt Balkind. An ecosystem partner of Surgency, Frankfurt Balkind helps deliver comprehensive branding, advertising, and communications solutions to its clients.

About Surgency

Surgency, Inc., formerly Benchmarking Partners, is the first and foremost e-business strategy firm dedicated to accelerating the transformation of enterprises so they may become leaders in their ecosystems - new business life forms, capable of fast, complete, and continuous adaptation to constantly changing business and technology realities. Funded by Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and the Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE), Surgency leverages a content-centric approach to develop and execute e-business strategies. Surgency implements Net-based collaborative environments and tools to accelerate client transformation and increase market impact. Since 1994, Surgency has been a leader in inter-enterprise collaboration. With global capabilities, Surgency is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. and San Jose, CA. Recent clients include Ariba, Cisco, DuPont, FedEx, IBM, and Oracle(R). Surgency can be reached at www.Surgency.com or 617-225-7800.

Note to Editors:

Surgency is a trademark of Surgency, Inc. Ariba is a registered trademark of Ariba Inc., Cisco is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc., EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation, and Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.