Wilson Industries Selects Softface to Structure Content for eCatalogs; Softface's Patented Technology Delivers Compelling ROI, Giving Wilson a Competitive Market Edge.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 2002

Softface, Inc., The Enterprise Content Automation Company, today announced that Wilson Industries, the leading distributor to the global energy market, selected Softface to normalize and standardize content enabling all of Wilson's 200 branch locations to quickly identify and source items, increase customer order accuracy, reduce Wilson's total cost of service and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Using Softface Enterprise Content Suite(TM), Wilson quickly and accurately classified more than 120,000 items to the Universal Standard Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC) and extracted over 500,000 product attributes from unstructured product-oriented text. Unlike the manually intensive approach, which requires an hour to process 30-40 items, Softface's patent-pending core technology is the first and only software that automatically, at a rate of tens of thousands of entries per hour, generates structured content and relevant attributes from plain-text descriptions with a high degree of precision. Softface's enterprise content automation solution delivers a high-speed, repeatable solution that enables Wilson to keep its eCatalogs current over the long term. Without Softface's automated solution, Wilson would have continued to use a less reliable and time consuming, manual content-creation process that would cost the company a substantial annual investment.

Softface's solution not only delivered on the structured content promise, but the highly accurate attributes in the resulting content are expected to increase customer order accuracy and reduce Wilson's total cost of service management. Wilson's business is based on highly customized customer service whereby a significant percentage of the items Wilson sells to customers are "one-time" or "non-stock" items. Nearly 90 percent of its customers have pre-negotiated, non-standard pricing agreements. By implementing the Softface solution, Wilson has benefited from decreasing the total cost associated with returns and increased its profitability and customer satisfaction.

"The results from the Softface Enterprise Content Suite implementation dramatically exceeded our value and quality expectations. Once we classified in excess of 120,000 items, we had already achieved a compelling ROI," stated Darren Rawson, Vice President of Solutions at Wilson Industries. "We saved a significant amount of money and achieved a higher level of quality by not using a manual service or other technologies that we evaluated. Our business of high service sourcing is dependent on our ability to deliver nonstandard goods, therefore content and pricing need to be accurate to ensure delivery of the right item, anywhere at any time. The Softface technology loads information assets into our systems precisely and swiftly and will be instrumental in maintaining our leadership in delivering supply management solutions for the global energy market."

"The Softface Enterprise Content Suite, which speeds and simplifies unstructured data classification and attribute extraction, is a powerful solution delivering a compelling ROI for medium and large-sized companies that want to leverage untapped corporate knowledge in order to make more cost-effective decisions, increase revenues, and enhance profits," remarked Olivier Sermet, President and CEO at Softface. "The speed and accuracy with which Softface can create attribute-rich content has broad application that can expedite an enterprise's ability to digitally collaborate throughout its value chain."

Defining Enterprise Content Automation

Behind the walls of every enterprise are vast stores of unstructured, untapped data, ranging from procurement, customer order, and other transaction history to cryptic inventory product descriptions. Transforming that "dirty data" into highly structured, information-rich enterprise content, easily digestible by ERP, CRM, sell-side catalog, analytical, and eProcurement analytical systems, yields increased product sales through better product content, enhanced profitability through detailed procurement analysis, and more accurate information availability at the corporate level. Historically, transforming large amounts of unstructured data into usable data has been manual, expensive and undependable. Softface's patent-pending core technology is the first and only software that automatically, at a rate of tens of thousands of entries per hour, generates structured content and relevant attributes from plain-text descriptions with a high degree of precision. While other products offer rudimentary keyword searching or product attribute approximations, Softface enables enterprise content automation by coupling its comprehensive grammar interpreting technology with comprehensively digitized domain expertise. The result is automatically cleansed, classified, rationalized and normalized enterprise content that is rich with highly accurate product attributes.

About Wilson Industries

Wilson has served the U.S. domestic oil and gas industry since 1921, the U.K. market since 1966 and today is the leading supply chain solutions company serving the world's energy markets. Wilson is recognized as a leader in product distribution and supply chain services for a wide range of markets. Wilson is a stocking distributor of more than 90,000 items, with a network of more than 200 branches. The products represent over 500 manufacturers of pipe, valves, fittings and general supplies for the maintenance, repair and operation, and general project needs of energy sector customers. In addition to branch stock, Wilson manages inventories at more than 70 customer sites.

About Softface, Inc.

Softface is the emerging de-facto standard for Enterprise Content Automation. Softface's Enterprise Content Suite solution speeds and simplifies unstructured data classification and attribute extraction, enabling Global 2000 customers to leverage untapped corporate knowledge in order to make more cost-effective decisions, increase revenues, and enhance profits. Softface's patent-pending, highly scalable core technology is the first and only software that automatically generates structured content and relevant attributes from plain-text descriptions with a high degree of precision. Softface is a privately held company located in Walnut Creek, Calif. For more information on Softface, visit the company's web site at www.softface.com or call 925/279-1097.

Softface, Softface Content Console, Softface Designer, Softface Content Engine, and Softface Enterprise Content Suite are trademarks of Softface, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.