Norwood Promotional Products Selects BusinessObjects Enterprise 6
For Data Integration and Analytic Applications
San Jose, Calif. - October 2, 2003 -- Business Objects, (Nasdaq: BOBJ; Euronext Paris ISIN code FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that Norwood Promotional products, Inc., the nation's largest supplier of promotional products, has selected Business ObjectsT Enterprise 6 to provide Norwood employees with insight into business performance. Using BusinessObjects Data Integrator along with analytic applications, managers at Norwood Promotional Products can access and integrate information from the firm's six legacy ERP Systems. In addition, the company purchased the entire suite of packaged analytic applications from Business Objects, including Customer Intelligence, Finance Intelligence, product and Service Intelligence, Human Resource Intelligence, and Supply Chain Intelligence.
Norwood operates a highly complex business, producing more than 20 promotional product lines with more than 6,000 items - from golf balls featuring corporate logos to personalized awards. Founded in 1989, Norwood has grown rapidly through acquisition and is today the result of 12 merged businesses. As a result, the information technology team needed to integrate data from six different legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. With little connectivity between these systems, it had become difficult to get critical business data to Norwood managers in a timely and integrated fashion. Using BusinessObjects Data Integrator, a batch and real-time data integration platform, Norwood plans to integrate data from its six ERP systems, allowing employees to obtain one consistent view of all their corporate information.
"We needed data integration. With other approaches, we would have needed to use a third-party vendor and the process appeared prohibitively expensive," said Jeff Daly, CIO of Norwood Promotional products. "Business Objects offered us one affordable platform to solve all of our needs. Over the next quarter we will have Data Integrator up and running across the enterprise and will install BusinessObjects Customer Intelligence, allowing us to understand the needs, preferences, and purchasing patterns of our customers in ways we never could have imagined before bringing in Business Objects."
Norwood will rely on analytic applications from Business Objects to help reduce store inventory through integrated management of their supply and demand chains. For instance, they will use BusinessObjects Sales and Campaign Analytics to more accurately forecast distributor needs and target product promotion to proactively reduce inventory levels. In addition, BusinessObjects Supply Chain Intelligence will help increase the percentage of on-time shipments by tracking which vendors are performing to contractual agreements.
The Business Objects BI deployment will grow as Norwood expands to web-based ordering. By analyzing web-based transactions, Norwood will gain instant visibility into important key performance indicators and customer behavior. The company will use BusinessObjects Warehouse to create a digital archive for every order taken over the web, and BusinessObjects Analytics including Customer Intelligence, Finance Intelligence, product and Service Intelligence, Human Resource Intelligence, and Supply Chain Intelligence to rapidly draw insights on customer and sales information pulled from the data warehouse archives.
"Norwood has realized that data integration and analytic applications are just as important as query and reporting," said Dave Kellogg, senior group vice president of worldwide marketing for Business Objects. "Integration gets to the sources of intelligence while Analytics power insight. By embracing this approach, Norwood is creating a BI platform that can help them improve business performance."
Get more information on the Business Objects suite of data integration tools and analytic applications.
About Norwood Promotional Products
Norwood Promotional Products, Inc., based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is the nation's largest supplier of promotional products. - www.norwood.com.
Norwood employs over 3,500 Associates at 15 locations including Indianapolis, Indiana; Auburn, Indiana; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Des Moines, Iowa; Janesville, Wisconsin; Los Angeles, California; New London, Wisconsin; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Red Wing, Minnesota; Reno, Nevada; San Antonio, Texas; Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and Washington, Iowa as well as London, Ontario, Canada and Hong Kong, China.
About Business Objects
Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. With more than 35,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helps organizations gain better insight into their business, improve decision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company's business intelligence platform, BusinessObjects™ XI, offers the BI industry's most complete and trusted platform for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and data integration. BusinessObjects XI includes Crystal Reports®, the industry standard for enterprise reporting. Business Objects has built the industry's strongest and most diverse partner community, and also offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.
Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.
