Emptoris Acquired Mindflow

“Our transition to the Emptoris platform is proceeding exceedingly well thanks to the high-level of executive attention and spirit of collaboration Emptoris brings to the conversion,” said Dennis Clabby, Vice President of Purchasing, Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC), the purchasing arm for Subway restaurants in North America and a strategic Mindflow customer. “The company’s market leadership and comprehensive suite of solutions give us confidence that the acquisition will continue to serve to our benefit.”

In related news, Emptoris today announced that it has recorded 68% year-over-year sales growth in the first half of 2006.

Delivering Value to Customers

“Emptoris is all about harnessing innovation to drive positive business impact for its customers,” said Avner Schneur. “Our solutions empower our customers to more efficiently and accurately manage their businesses — and ultimately to accelerate their profitable growth.”

With the acquisition, Mindflow customers immediately benefit from access to Emptoris’ full supply management suite of solutions, as well as its rich domain expertise. Emptoris offers the broadest solution suite with deep functionality across the entire supply and contract management process including solutions for spend analysis, sourcing, contract management, compliance, and supplier performance management.

Currently, over 160 customers across 50 countries use Emptoris solutions and services to analyze over $8 trillion of spend, to source over $110 billion of products and services, to manage contracts covering $65 billion in spending, and to deliver approximately $14 billion in bottom line savings.

Overdrive by Emptoris Drives Even Greater Adoption and Value

Also today, Emptoris launched Overdrive, a new offering designed to accelerate business impact and drive self-sufficiency for customers. Built by sourcing program managers, this service offering helps companies create and run an effective program management office to support the roll out of Emptoris’ sourcing capabilities enterprise-wide and push adoption to the next level. The offering combines the following new tools and services:

• Assessment: Overdrive’s assessment tools help customers identify opportunities to improve their sourcing program, projects and events.
• Adoption: Adoption workshops are offered to help companies push commodities coverage to in excess of 75%.
• Analytical Reporting: Leave behind analytical reporting and program analysis tools help customers improve efficiency and decision-making.
• Access: Access to a broad user community promotes knowledge sharing and includes benchmarking metrics.

Market Needs Driving Consolidation

“Through continuously strong organic growth, and with strategic acquisitions, Emptoris continues to expand its footprint as the market leader in supply and contract management software,” said Avner Schneur, Emptoris' president and chief executive officer. “The acquisition of Mindflow and leading companies such as diCarta expand our capabilities to meet the growing demands for our solutions and services.”

In the past three years, as customer demand for Emptoris’ integrated solutions has accelerated, the company has selectively acquired strategic spend, sourcing and contract management companies, including: Intigma, a leading spend management software company; Valuedge, a supply assessment software company; Zeborg, a spend analytics company; and diCarta, the leading contract management solution provider.

With the acquisition of Mindflow, Emptoris added a number of major new customers, including a leading global food & beverage manufacturer and several of the nation’s leading quick-service and casual dining restaurant chains, expanding its industry footprint and expertise in these sectors. The acquisition also further strengthened the company’s team of sourcing experts and product managers and developers.

A Shared DNA As Innovators

“Our acquisitions have brought the best technologies and minds in the sourcing and supply management industry together and, in the process, have allowed Emptoris to lead the consolidation of the market,” continued Schneur. “As for Emptoris and Mindflow, we share the same DNA as innovators and share the same commitment to advanced optimization in sourcing. As a result, Emptoris is uniquely positioned to serve Mindflow’s customers.”

Emptoris, ranked #1 for current offerings in sourcing and contract management functionality by Forrester Research, was founded based on its innovative developments in the use of optimization in strategic sourcing. Ever since, the company has consistently invested up to a third of its revenue back into research and development in order to expand its solutions and continue to bring innovations to the market. That commitment has led to the company holding more than 115 pending patents for sourcing and supply management technologies — and to consistent recognition for its product leadership by leading industry analyst firms.

Mindflow, an early pioneer of strategic sourcing automation, was placed by Gartner in the “visionary” quadrant of the research firm’s annual Strategic Sourcing Applications Magic Quadrant in January 2005. The Aberdeen Group, another leading independent research firm, ranked Mindflow customers as “Best in Class” in its sourcing best practices report, "Success Strategies in Advanced Sourcing and Negotiations."