E2open Offers Performance Guarantees of Solutions

Money back or credit offered if solution does not perform as designed or to service level agreement

Money back or credit offered if solution does not perform as designed or to service level agreement

Redwood City, CA — December 6, 2005 — Electronics industry solution provider E2open has introduced solution performance guarantees that provide money back if its solution does not perform as designed, and a credit if the solution does not perform according to a global service level agreement (SLA).

E2open said that it was introducing this guarantee, based on its experience deploying and operating supply chain and supplier relationship management (SRM) systems in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, as a way to improve time-to-value performance and reduce deployment risk.

E2open said it intended to remove the complexity and assumes the risk of software implementations by offering its solutions in a SaaS model and by providing two types of guarantees for its packaged business process solutions purchased under E2open's standard terms and conditions.

First, the Solution Performance Guarantee provides money back if a solution does not perform as designed in the solution design document (SDD) in terms of functional scope and scalability. And second, an Operations Availability Credit provides a credit if the solution does not perform according to an SLA. E2open also offers its software in a traditional on-premises model, which allows the customer to take over operations of the software at any point in time after E2open has proven its successful operations.

These performance guarantees apply to E2open's eight generally available packaged business process solutions, which now include solutions for spend consolidation, logistics visibility and manufacturing visibility, in addition to its existing order management, inventory management, demand supply synchronization, multi-tier visibility and eco-compliance solutions.

The solutions include:

  • Order Management, intended to reduce procurement costs and errors by automating the order lifecycle, from order placement through shipping, receiving, invoicing and payment, across 100 percent of the supply base.


  • Inventory Management, which automates the replenishment and financial reconciliation process across supply chain partners, helping to reducing stock-outs, minimizing inventory and eliminating many VMI program management costs.


  • Demand/Supply Synchronization, intended to provide a consolidated view of customer demand and available supply, enabling reconciliation of disconnects.


  • Spend Consolidation, which can help reduce material costs, increase procurement power and ensure compliance with negotiated global prices through automated tracking and analysis of global spending across multiple enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.


  • Logistics Visibility, designed to reduce the cost of managing in-transit logistics by automating and monitoring the entire logistics process, especially for mixed-mode long routes from China and Southeast Asia.


  • Multi-tier Visibility, intended to provide timely information about demand/supply disconnects and performance exceptions by automating the collection and analysis of critical data at various levels of the supply chain.


  • Manufacturing Visibility, which can lower outside processing costs by providing visibility into outsourced manufacturing work-in-process, yields and lot tracking, especially for critical long lead-time components.


  • Eco-compliance, which manages material composition process by automating the collection and management of supplier, item and product level compliance information across the supply chain.
E2open said that the general availability of these first eight packaged business process solutions reflects the company's commitment to deliver solutions that cut costs, slash cycle time, assure supply availability and improve flexibility over distributed global supply networks.

With E2open's packaged business process solutions, customers will see implementation timeframes averaging four-and-a-half months, which, E2open said, is four times faster than the 18 months that is typical of traditional approaches. This deployment timeframe reduction is made possible by E2open's packaged solution templates:

  • Software Templates: Business process templates and pre-configured workflows designed to manage different types of supply chain processes, predefined process exceptions and alerting, process- specific reports and process integration choreography, with support for many integration and ERP standards (RosettaNet PIPs, SAP iDOCs, etc.).


  • Deployment Templates: Detailed deployment plans, business case templates with affected metrics, detailed solution design documents for implementation, internal and external communication materials and methodology, integration specifications for business partners, packaged end-user training materials, and test plans and pre-packaged test scripts.


  • Operations Templates: Standardized software change management guides, integrated support plans, performance-backed service level agreements, and system performance reports and metrics.



Additional Articles of Interest

— Looking to outsource your supply chain? For five success factors for your outsourcing project Read "Rising to the Challenge of the Outsourced Supply Chain," cover story in the October/November 2005 issue of Supply and Demand Chain Executive.

— Look before you leap: For tips to follow before you set up shop in China, especially with regard to the supply chain, read the SDCExec.com exclusive "Entering China: No One Said It Was Easy."

— All that glitters may not be gold when it comes to outsourcing manufacturing productions to China. First, weigh the costs and learn the facts with this helpful guide. Read "China or Bust: Recognizing the True Costs of Outsourcing" on SDCExec.com.


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