Comshare boosts consumer packaged goods industry; new application suite to bring integration and optimization to CPG decision-making.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 2, 1996--Comshare, Inc., The Decision Support Company(TM), is reinforcing its position in decision support for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry with the introduction of BOOST(TM), a new application suite for CPG. BOOST(TM) Sales and Margin Planning, the first component of the suite to be released, is a brand and customer planning system for CPG manufacturers that uses proven technology built on Comshare's successful merchandise and store planning application for retailers, known as Arthur(R).

"Comshare has always had a strong presence across the total CPG supply chain," says Luke Alvarez, BOOST Whole Product Director. "Our Arthur suite of pre-built applications is the dominant decision support solution for large retailers, and is used by Wal-Mart, Neiman-Marcus Direct, Disney Stores and many others. In the CPG manufacturing sector, we previously have delivered custom decision support solutions to many hundreds of blue-chip companies including Pepsi, Philip Morris, Kraft Foods and Johnson & Johnson. Now we feel that the worldwide rollout of Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) best practice gives us an opportunity to provide a suite of pre-built applications to the manufacturing sector, focused on ECR. Our BOOST suite for CPG manufacturing compliments our Arthur suite for retail, and will reinforce Comshare's position as the premier provider of decision support to the CPG supply chain.

"The common themes of the BOOST suite of applications are integration and optimization," continues Alvarez. "In many of the CPG companies that we've worked with, we found that operational processes such as order processing and replenishment were becoming well integrated and optimized across the business functions. But decision support was not.

"Often," he adds, "the account plans, brand volume forecasts, promotions plans, financial budgets and inventory plans were all in separate systems -- a variety of spreadsheets, forecasting tools, mainframes and so on. This means a huge effort to share plans; long, painful planning cycles, and inaccurate plans with little real operational buy-in.

"Another example is that external and internal data were often not brought together," says Alvarez. "So the effects of competitor pricing and promotional initiatives could not easily be correlated with internal shipments and profits. This could make it hard for CPG manufacturers to respond to competition in a way that both improves internal brand performance and boosts customer/account satisfaction.

"There is a need to bring integration and optimization to all these decision processes," suggests Alvarez. "This is what the BOOST suite does. With BOOST Sales and Margin Planning, we've addressed the planning problems by developing a system that allows finance, marketing, sales and operations to plan in harmony," he continued.

"It enables decision-makers to build more targeted plans that match the right assortment, promotional and pricing strategies to the right customers. It also instantly illuminates the effects of alternative plan scenarios on product, customer and consolidated margins, leading to enhanced efficiency at all levels of the business. It is a truly cross-functional system."

"If BOOST Sales and Margin Planning can be seen as providing horizontal integration of planning across the functions," concludes Alvarez, "further additions to the BOOST product line will provide greater vertical integration of analysis within each function. Improving the integration of internal and external data for sales and for marketing is one example of this."

Comshare's mission is to be the premier provider to consumer packaged goods manufacturers of integrated DSS applications that improve the quality and speed of decisions, which increase their market share, growth and profitability.

Comshare is The Decision Support Company. One of the top 50 software companies in the world, Comshare develops, markets and supports complete decision support applications designed to improve business analysis, planning, reporting and decision making. Comshare decision support applications result in better decisions, improved profits, and enhanced competitiveness for its more than 3,000 customers in over 40 countries worldwide.

For more information about Comshare products and services, call 1-800-922-7979 or see our home page on the world wide web at http://www.comshare.com

Comshare is a registered trademark; The Decision Support Company, BOOST and Arthur are trademarks of Comshare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

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CONTACT: Comshare, Inc.

Dan Jankowski, 313/769-8742

or

Eiler Communications

Larry T. Eiler 313-761-3399