CFT Consulting reports NRF show as big hit; New technology drew excellent response.

SARASOTA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 1997--CFT Consulting Inc., (CFT), a retail and supply-chain management consulting firm based in Sarasota, returned from the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 86th Annual Convention & Expo in New York City reporting excellent response from show attendees to its product and service offerings.

Despite a change in venue of this year's show to the Jacob Javits Center, which seemed to depress overall show attendance somewhat, CFT reported above average traffic at its booth. CFT showed products such as StoreVu, a drag and drop store planning application developed by Object Solutions Inc.; Retail-At-Once, a Lotus Notes-based retail control center application developed jointly by CFT Consulting and Synergistics Inc.; and XBR-Track, an exception-based reporting tool developed by CFT Systems Inc. All generated great interest at the show. The NRF show is considered to be one of the premier trade shows for retail technology, with most major retailers making annual treks to the show in search of solutions to support real-world retail and supply-chain systems initiatives.

"As their margins continue to get squeezed, retailers are becoming increasingly aware of the value they need to place on both their retail and their supply-chain information systems as they face the twenty-first century," said Ken Goldberg, Partner at CFT Consulting. "NRF gave us the opportunity to showcase our capabilities in this arena, particularly our ability to strategically plan solutions for difficult retail and supply-chain problems and also to actually implement those plans successfully for our clients."

Ken Morris, Partner at CFT Consulting, believes that many attendees were also attracted to CFT's booth because of the opportunity to take hands-on demos of the products and to talk directly with the developers. "Retailers have learned that many show demos are really just mock-ups of software products, without any real data behind them," Morris said, "so they appreciated seeing and working with the real thing at our booth. We were pleased to introduce our current clients and some new friends to the exciting enhancements in some of the products, which we've helped develop, and to answer questions about our expanding range of consulting services."

Object Solutions Inc., is a leading-edge graphics and object-oriented application developer.

Synergistics Inc., is a developer of collaborative solutions based on new technologies that simplify the process of automation.

CFT Consulting Inc., offers a unique source to businesses and their supply-chain partners for identifying, implementing, and managing effective information technology and business processes. CFT serves national and international clients as a full-service management and technology resource and is a Lotus Premium Business Partner. -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: Lotus and Lotus Notes are trademarks of the Lotus Development Corporation.

In the product name Retail-At-Once note in this news release, the "at" symbol has been spelled out between Retail and Once because it may not appear properly in some systems. Also, in the Internet/email address, there is an "at" symbol between rsmall and cftconsulting.com .

CONTACT: CFT Consulting Inc.

Royston Small, 941/366-6657

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