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Syncra announces local language support for international customers

Waltham, MA and Amsterdam, The Netherlands   February 27, 2002  Like most companies today, Syncra Systems, Inc., a provider of supply chain intelligence and collaboration solutions, has an increasingly international customer base. In order to accommodate a wide variety of customers, the company announced today that it has internationalized its supply chain collaboration platform, Syncra Xt". The product now supports both single- and double-byte language packs, enabling any user to select their preferred language upon login. Syncra Xt hopes the new solution will help them gain ground in CPFR-based inter-enterprise supply chain collaboration in the consumer goods and retail industries.


"CPFR has gone global and our clients need to collaborate with their suppliers and customers in different languages, but on the same data," said Jeff Stamen, CEO, Syncra Systems. "We plan to build the language packs based on market demand, with the Japanese language as our initial focus."


"Syncra has been actively involved in the development of these guidelines from the committee's inception," said Matt Johnson, Syncra's CTO and co-chair or the VICS CPFR Technical Committee, which is responsible for establishing technical frameworks for the industry and interoperability principles for participating organizations. "All future CPFR work will be in a global context. For example, the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) Working Group on the Globalization of CPFR has grown to 62 members, reflecting tremendous international interest."


Syncra's customer base of consumer goods manufacturers, retailers and eMarketplaces includes a growing list of multi-national customers and their trading partners such as Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson, Superdrug and Transora. Many of these companies have embarked on initial deployments in Europe with great success.


The demand for CPFR and Syncra's supply chain collaboration solutions is also increasing outside of North America and Europe. In Japan, where a difficult economic climate is coupled with inherently inefficient supply chains, interest in CPFR is high. All indications are that adoption may even surpass what has been seen in the United States. Hitachi, for example, has conducted extensive market research for CPFR solutions in Japan. The company has made significant commitments to deploy CPFR utilizing Syncra Xt through its TWX-21/Exchange eMarketplace, which already boasts more than 11,000 customers throughout Asia with transaction volumes exceeding US$40 Billion.


"Local language support is critical to a successful entry into the Japanese market," said Jack Plimpton, President, Japan Entry Corporation, a leading Japanese market consulting organization. "By offering local language support, Syncra has grabbed market leadership in Japan, where CPFR will be adopted rapidly because of a cultural bias towards collaboration and competitive imperatives to modernize IT infrastructure.  Syncra is well-positioned to become #1 in supply chain collaboration applications in Japan and throughout Asia."

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