Ketera Announces Next Generation Spend Analysis Solution.

Advanced Learning Algorithms and Collaborative User Capabilities Allow Procurement Professionals to Easily Drill Down on Spend

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Ketera, the leading provider of On Demand Spend Management solutions, announced today the release of Ketera Spend Analysis 5.0, a next generation on demand spend analysis solution and the latest addition to Ketera's robust Mercury Spend Management Platform. Integrated as part of the highly-innovative Mercury solutions platform, Ketera's new spend analysis solution provides customers with complete and accurate visibility into their spend to help them identify additional cost savings.

Specifically, the new version of Ketera Spend Analysis cleanses, normalizes and classifies spend data on both goods and services by using patent-pending Ketera Spend Processing technology to ensure high accuracy and quick turn-around time in providing actionable and intelligent spend analytics reports. The new spend processing technology is also unique as it allows customers to collaborate during any stage of the spend classification process. Customers can review and update data cleansing business rules and classification results, which provides process transparency and enables users closest to the data to course correct as necessary.

By leveraging enriched artificial intelligence-based learning algorithms like Bayesian and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) that work on Ketera's knowledge-rich libraries, Ketera Spend Analysis 5.0 is the first to banish the industry's cumbersome "black box" approach to the cleansing and classification process - an approach that hides the granular details of the spend analysis process from the user. Rather, Ketera Spend Analysis 5.0 has been designed as a complete end-to-end automated solution that presents customers with complex analytic reports in an easy-to-use and intuitive Web 2.0 interface. And because it is built as an on demand solution, it can be deployed quickly and easily across small to large enterprise organizations, unlocking massive and immediate hard dollar procurement savings for companies of all sizes.

"Implementing a spending analysis solution is crucial to the bottom line of larger organizations," said Gartner Research Director of Procurement Strategies & Systems, Deborah Wilson. "Spending analysis solutions that systematically deliver data enrichment, data cleansing and improved classification accuracy enable organizations to effectively identify opportunities to reduce costs, while improving their tactical and strategic decision-making processes at the micro and macro levels."

"By integrating Ketera's new Spend Analysis 5.0 into our client solution set, we can offer customized, insightful and actionable data to our corporate services clients," said Dana Kirchman, vice president of global business-to-business marketing, American Express. "The enhancements give us much more spend visibility to help clients drive sourcing and policy decisions."

"Our focus was on creating an innovative on demand spend analytics system that ensures high-quality data cleansing and classification in an automated and easy-to-use solution. Ketera Spend Analysis 5.0 is that answer for customers," said Arun Prakash, senior director of products, Ketera. "Customers know their data best, so it makes sense for them to have a solution that lets them see exactly what the technology's doing and have a say in the process. With the unprecedented amount of accuracy and ease of use our solution offers customers, Ketera is helping more companies break down the complexities of spend analytics, drill deep down into their corporate spend and reduce costs."

Pricing and Availability

The new version of Ketera Spend Analysis 5.0 is currently available to all customers. Pricing is available upon request.

About Ketera

Ketera is the fastest-growing provider of on demand spend management solutions, providing companies with the applications and services needed to control and reduce corporate spending. Ketera's closed-loop spend management solutions include applications for spend analysis, sourcing, contract management, procurement, supplier enablement & content management, supplier performance management, and invoice management.

Since its inception, Ketera has supported enterprises customers of all sizes, industries and geographies, including numerous Fortune 500 companies. In 2006, Ketera surpassed $4 trillion in spend analyzed and more than $1 billion in transactions between buyers and suppliers. Many of the world's leading enterprise companies, including ServiceMaster, American Express, Kennametal, Con-way, and Northrop Grumman Corporation depend on Ketera Spend Management to deliver real, hard-dollar savings quickly.

For more information about Ketera and the Ketera Spend Management suite of services, please visit: http://www.ketera.com.