Driebergen, The NetherlandsJune 3, 2002Cedron, a provider of universal product information management solutions, has announced the acquisition of Content Europe, thus expanding its market offering. Cedron has acquired Content Europe's intellectual property rights, R&D and management staff as well as its international blue chip customer base. The acquisition is all part of Cedron's strategy for rapid business expansion, not only in Europe but also in the United States.
"The synergy of our solutions puts us in pole position when it comes to solving Product Information Management challenges, says Rene Jepma, CEO of Cedron. Our newly acquired platform is very much geared to managing product content, essential in trading relationships between suppliers, distributors and buyers. This gives the Cedron solution added strength in terms of the creation and collaborative management of electronic commerce catalogues, enabling e-commerce and e-procurement in a very open and flexible way.
Dirk Meurer, Partner of DVC, (Deutsche Bank), comments on this acquisition: "As a shareholder in Cedron we fully support the acquisition because it is a logical extension of the already existing software product and will dramatically shorten the R&D cycle. With the integrated software Cedron provides an unparalleled suite of powerful, automated, and easy-to-use solutions to create, manage, and leverage product content as a corporate asset for e-business."
Major retailers and buying organization put pressure on vendors to deliver up-to-date product information. Those who fail to provide good product data will see relations erode and market share slip. Those who do conform will get prime placement for their products in merchandising efforts and on websites, as good product information joins price in the race to steal customers from competitors. Suppliers face a daunting challenge: valuable product information often lies in multiple legacy systems stored in duplicated and conflicting formats. The cost in resources, time and lost productivity associated with managing and maintaining duplicate product information for multiple channels and purposes are very significant. There is a need for a single source of product information, a central data repository, integrated with back office and front office systems and capable of distributing consistent information in multiple formats and channels, while keeping the information in the legacy systems synchronized.
For more information on Product Lifecycle Management and Product Management, look for Version 4.0 of the iSource Global Enabled Supply Chain Map in our August/September 2002 issue.
