BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina to Deploy BusinessObjects Enterprise 6.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 2003

Business Intelligence Suite from Business Objects Will Enable

Organization to Expand Healthcare Extranet and Deliver

Performance Management Dashboards

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that BlueCross BlueShield (BlueCross) of South Carolina will expand its Business Objects implementation by deploying BusinessObjects(TM) Enterprise 6 for enterprise performance management. A Business Objects customer for several years, BlueCross will use the new version of the Business Objects BI suite to increase the use of the solution internally and extend the reach of its healthcare extranet to several thousand users.

Using WebIntelligence(R) 6.0, the web-based BI solution from Business Objects, BlueCross will expand its BI extranet to provide health insurance claims information to its users in the TRICARE and Medicare healthcare networks. The organization also has plans to use BusinessObjects Application Foundation and WebIntelligence to deliver sophisticated dashboards to track, understand, and manage key performance indicators across its business.

"As a large company, BlueCross BlueShield collects data in several different systems and applications. We turned to Business Objects to integrate this data, in order to obtain one version of the truth and to help manage enterprise performance," stated Myra Monroe, director of the BlueCross BlueShield data warehouse. "We needed reports both at an executive summary level, as well as detailed analyses to track metrics and spot trends in our business and industry. As we looked to expand our capabilities and support emerging performance management initiatives, Enterprise 6 was the obvious choice. It provides the web reporting power, ease of use, and integrated dashboard capabilities to take our BI strategy to the next level."

In addition to its commercial members, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina also supports the claims processing and customer service for TRICARE, the military's health benefits system. Through PGBA LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, the organization processes approximately seven million claims a month. Using Business Objects, PGBA can provide detailed reports on these claims, including information on providers, service authorizations and referrals, patient correspondence, and call tracking among other metrics. Furthermore, Palmetto GBA, another subsidiary that provides administrative services for Medicare, uses the BlueCross BI extranet for statistical analysis of claims data spanning more than a decade, and provides access to the data remotely using WebIntelligence.

With more than one million members in its commercial plan and serving more than 21 million people nationwide through its subsidiaries, BlueCross BlueShield is inundated with data. "Internally, we needed a way to build sophisticated dashboards to represent large volumes of data from numerous sources to quickly identify and act on key metrics and business trends," said Wayne Roberts, vice president of IT operations at BlueCross BlueShield. "With BusinessObjects Application Foundation, we can now create dashboards with robust graphical elements to facilitate and expedite decision making. In addition, we can use the new functionality in Enterprise 6 to ensure our BI extranet provides the same functionality that we use internally and deliver enhanced value to our partner relationships."

"Customers today are looking to BusinessObjects Enterprise 6 as a complete solution for business intelligence, data integration, and analytics to track, understand, and manage enterprise performance across their entire organization," said Dave Kellogg, senior group vice president of worldwide marketing at Business Objects. "BusinessObjects Enterprise 6 is the industry's most integrated and complete business intelligence suite. More importantly, it enables organizations to transform their business, and establish and maintain new types of partner relationships."

Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina (www.SouthCarolinaBlues.com) is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading provider of enterprise business intelligence (BI) solutions. Business Objects enables organizations to track, understand, and manage enterprise performance. The company's solutions leverage the information that is stored in an array of corporate databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Popular uses of BI include management dashboards and scorecards, enterprise performance management applications, customer intelligence applications, enterprise reporting, financial reporting, and both customer and partner extranets. These solutions enable companies to gain visibility into their business, acquire and retain profitable customers, reduce costs, optimize the supply chain, increase productivity and improve financial performance.

Business Objects provides the industry's most integrated business intelligence suite, called BusinessObjects Enterprise 6. This suite includes the industry's best web query, reporting, and analysis; the most advanced and complete suite of analytic applications; and the best connectivity to packaged applications.

Business Objects has more than 17,500 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB). It is included in the SBF 120 and IT CAC 50 French stock market indexes. Business Objects can be reached at 408/953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.

BusinessObjects is a trademark and WebIntelligence is a registered trademark of Business Objects SA. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.