Verticalnet Upgrades XE Supply Management Suite.

MALVERN, Pa. -- Latest Release Integrates Verticalnet and B2eMarkets Platforms; Integrated Suite Drives Value across the Full Supply Management Lifecycle

Verticalnet, Inc. (Nasdaq:VERT), a leading provider of supply management solutions, today announced an upgrade to Verticalnet(R) XE, the next generation of Verticalnet's end-to-end suite of applications that helps companies drive sustainable bottom line improvements through better management of their supply base. Based on input from Verticalnet's customer base of over 70 Global 2000 companies, the Verticalnet XE upgrade provides visibility into spending, contract compliance, and performance along with solutions to identify sourcing opportunities, develop and execute sourcing strategies, and manage contracts and supplier performance.

Verticalnet XE helps supply management organizations solve their most pressing challenges. According to the Aberdeen Group, approximately 60% of negotiated savings fail to reach the bottom line. This savings "leakage" has made finance organizations increasingly skeptical of savings that are negotiated through traditional e-Sourcing processes. At the same time, supply market dynamics have shifted as the economy has improved. Driving big savings through reverse auctions is not as easy as it used to be. Verticalnet XE customers proactively manage the realization of savings -- from opportunity identification, through negotiation, contracting, and tactical purchasing -- to maximize value in today's challenging supply market, and ensure that negotiated value is actually being realized.

"Faced with pressures to improve savings compliance, repeat early e-sourcing successes, and counter emerging supply market constraints, leading enterprises are beginning to adopt more intelligent sourcing methods and systems to improve insight into spending, enhance collaborative and flexible negotiation methods, utilize advanced analytics and decision support tools, and improve monitoring and compliance of supply costs and performance," said Tim Minahan, SVP of Supply Chain at Aberdeen Group. "With its XE release, Verticalnet offers an integrated set of intelligent sourcing solutions that are targeted towards value discovery and capture."

Release Highlights:

--The new Verticalnet(R) Supply Management Dashboard provides sourcing professionals at all levels with information they need right at their fingertips. Verticalnet XE offers customers integrated visibility into spending, sourcing projects, contracts, and supplier performance intelligence.

--Decision support capabilities in Verticalnet XE help supply management executives ensure that negotiated savings actually drop to the bottom line and are recognized by the CFO's office.

--The expanded capabilities of Verticalnet XE enable clients to source the most difficult categories, yet are easy enough to use to encourage broad adoption throughout the organization.

--As with previous versions, the upgrade to Verticalnet XE is available via an on-demand model, or installed on the customer's hardware. Verticalnet's On-Demand services eliminate many of the time consuming tasks associated with e-sourcing, which speeds implementation, lowers cost, and drives deeper adoption in Verticalnet customer organizations.

"The Verticalnet XE suite was designed to meet the real-world needs of sourcing professionals," said James Wetekamp, Verticalnet's Vice President of Product Management. "As supply management continues to become a strategic focus of Global 2000 companies, they are looking for more advanced and integrated solutions to augment their basic eSourcing applications. At the same time, many eSourcing applications go unused because of a lack of institutionalized processes, administrative burden on buyers and suppliers, and a lack of compliance with contracts negotiated through eSourcing. Verticalnet XE delivers a complete set of solutions that is easily deployed, yet powerful enough to meet the increasingly advanced needs of our customers."

Verticalnet XE - Driving Value Realization in Supply Management

Verticalnet XE customers have gained control of the complete supply management lifecycle to solve some of their most pressing supply management problems. For example:

Compliance and Performance Management

Verticalnet XE customers easily manage contract compliance and supplier performance challenges. Prior to implementing Verticalnet XE, contracts were stored in file cabinets with little ability to track contract terms and measure supplier performance or price compliance. As a result, a company with upwards of 2,000 different procurement contracts found it nearly impossible to monitor and improve supplier compliance with negotiated agreements.

After implementing Verticalnet XE, bid awards created in the Negotiation Manager module are automatically converted to contract terms and conditions. Contract terms become key performance indicators that are tracked in the Spend Manager module. Compliance and performance data is tracked on the category manager's dashboard, which includes automatic alerts when compliance or performance drops below expectations, and on-line corrective action plans that ensure nonperforming suppliers return to compliance. Leveraging the integrated Verticalnet Spend Manager, Contract Manager, and Performance Manager modules enables the customer to easily monitor supplier compliance and performance to ensure that negotiated savings are actually realized.

Centralized Sourcing

Increasingly, Verticalnet customers are creating centralized sourcing organizations to gain the leverage and scale of their global requirements, while keeping tactical purchasing activities at the local or divisional level. With Verticalnet XE, an acquisition-driven customer effectively manages their centralized procurement operations covering more than 30 independent divisions. Without altering the legacy procurement systems of the divisions, the centralized organization can monitor compliance and identify opportunities to gain leverage across the organizations through Verticalnet Spend Manager. Based upon these identified opportunities, the centralized sourcing organization can execute sourcing programs across these organizations, and ensure contract adoption by providing the independent companies access to common contracts in the Verticalnet Contract Manager module. These contracts are then integrated into the individual divisional ERP systems for procurement execution.

Sourcing Program Management

Many companies have hit-and-miss sourcing success due to the inconsistent application of strategic sourcing processes across various categories. A Verticalnet XE customer seamlessly manages the sourcing process from opportunity identification to program planning, event execution, contract binding, and ultimately supplier performance and compliance monitoring. The Verticalnet Program Manager module manages the sourcing process, knowledgebase, and project across the full lifecycle. The supply management process is managed through a single integrated process. Each completed sourcing cycle is more effective than the last because of the Verticalnet XE embedded processes and coaching. Future sourcing waves benefit from documented best practices, intellectual property, and reusable project documents.

Verticalnet On-Demand Services

The Verticalnet XE suite is available in both on-demand and traditional installed models. Verticalnet was a pioneer of on-demand supply management solutions and today is a leader in the space with approximately half of Verticalnet's 70 customers choosing Verticalnet On-Demand and executing over 1,000 sourcing events, involving tens of thousands of suppliers, every month. With Verticalnet On-Demand, customers can start realizing value from the Verticalnet XE solutions without a lengthy software implementation, or requiring the use of constrained IT resources. As a result, Verticalnet On-Demand customers start seeing benefits faster, and experience greater usage of the solutions over time.

"The on-demand model is gaining acceptance across all software categories because it speeds adoption while reducing risk, complexity, and cost for our customers," Wetekamp continued. "With Verticalnet On-Demand, there's no software to install, maintain and support and no prohibitive up-front costs. Additionally, in the Supply Management space, 'on demand' means more than a just a hosted software application. In addition to application hosting, we offer our customers a wide array of services including supplier and buyer training, event management, and help desk support. These services eliminate anywhere from 25% to 75% of the effort to execute electronic sourcing events. As a result, Verticalnet On-Demand customers experience greater adoption and therefore generate more value than other sourcing methods."

Availability

The upgrade to Verticalnet XE is generally available as of today. Those interested in learning more about, or receiving a demonstration of Verticalnet XE can visit the Company's website at www.verticalnet.com, or contact Verticalnet at 610-240-0600.

About Verticalnet

Verticalnet is a leading provider of supply management solutions that enable companies to identify and realize sustained value across the supply management lifecycle. Going beyond traditional spend management and sourcing approaches, Verticalnet's solutions provide the visibility, insight and process control required to maximize the sustained value realization from supply management. Large enough to help customers attain supply management success worldwide, yet nimble enough to provide individual attention and remain focused on customer priorities, Verticalnet has helped numerous Global 2000 companies take their supply management efforts to the next level through an optimal blend of software, comprehensive services, and deep category knowledge and domain expertise. To learn more, please visit us at www.verticalnet.com.

Verticalnet is a registered trademark or a trademark in the United States and other countries of Vert Tech LLC.