RedPrairie CEO John Jazwiec says, "RedPrairie is the through leader and leading solutions provider for Retail Productivity Solutions. Through this acquisition, we are providing customers an end-to-end approach to Workforce Optimization by marrying best-in-class BlueCube Workforce Management with StorePerform Store Execution Management solutions for a unified, end-to-end solution that optimizes the retail workforce. With StorePerform, the leader in store execution management, we can further enable retailers to ensure that the right product and the right people are in the right place at the right time."

States Kim Eaton, RedPrairie President, Retail Productivity Solutions, "We have led the industry by delivering optimized scheduling based on projected customer traffic and related sales. This workload typically represents two-thirds of the store's required labor. However, Store Execution Management also plays a vital role in optimizing the workforce and, therefore, the retail environment. StorePerform allows retailers to schedule and track the remaining third - task-driven labor requirements, such as inventory resets, new displays, product recalls, etc. These task-driven requirements have dramatically increased in recent years with the advent of advanced price optimization and merchandizing solutions that create added workload for the store operation."  

She continues, "True workforce optimization requires a labor schedule that considers demand from traffic and task drivers. Combined with world-class time and attendance, workforce analytics and learning management, RedPrairie's Retail Productivity suite now provides the kind of end-to-end workforce optimization that retailers will leverage to outperform their competition. This integrated view of the retail operation pays dividends by reducing the costs of operating the business and providing the ability to maximize the performance of every store employee."

"This is one of the more logical and beneficial retail software deals to have transpired in 2006," says Rob Garf, Research Director at AMR Research.^[1] "Combining workforce management and task management assets makes sense for RedPrairie, which now has an additional store operations product in its arsenal. It can use its installed base and marketing power to penetrate a relatively immature market. More importantly though, the deal makes sense for the retail community, which should find tremendous value from procuring these complementary systems from a single vendor. This acquisition proves that RedPrairie is serious about integrating data and processes between workforce and task management applications."

Vasan comments, "This is an exciting milestone for our company. Together with RedPrairie we will create the world's first and only end-to-end workforce optimization suite that will enable retailers to manage their labor costs with an extremely accurate, real-time view into in-store operations and workloads, while also maintaining compliance with the corporate merchandizing strategy required across the enterprise. We look forward to growing as part of RedPrairie's Retail Productivity Solutions division to create important new capabilities for our customers and opportunities for our employees."

The agreement with StorePerform underscores the RedPrairie commitment to optimizing retail operations by continued investment in its Retail Productivity Solutions business. StorePerform will unify and support its products and services in conjunction with the RedPrairie's Retail Productivity solution suite. In addition, the acquisition is an important component of RedPrairie's E²e^T (end-to-end) Consumer Driven Optimization^SM strategy, which drives value to every participant in the process by connecting the consumer with store operations, employee performance, distribution and manufacturing.

"Extending into store execution management is a natural evolution for RedPrairie. Even companies with the best retail and supply chain operations in the world still need to improve the critical last 20 yards, between the backroom and the sales floor. Now with the addition of StorePerform, we are the only company that can enable retailers to fully integrate their supply chain with their in-store operations end-to-end," says Jazwiec.

This acquisition will close in the next 20-30 days.

About StorePerform Technologies, Inc.

StorePerform is the leader in store execution management software that bridges the gap between retailers' sales strategy and program execution. StorePerform's proven technology is used by Best Buy, Lowe's, Borders, Ross and other top retailers to quickly maximize store productivity and drive top-line revenue growth through better store execution. It shifts the retailer's focus from managing solely by geography or format, and provides a view that allows them to focus on what high-performing stores are doing right and how to provide those learnings to the rest of the chain. It provides all levels of the organization-from corporate through to the stores-with the tools to combine better communication, execution and visibility into improved store performance.

About RedPrairie Corporation

RedPrairie is the world's leading consumer driven optimization company. Built on an advanced Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) developed over the past 10 years, the RedPrairie integrated suite of end-to-end (E²e^TM) solutions offers on-demand capabilities to over 25,000 sites worldwide for many of the world's largest companies. With 21 global service sites and standard service methods that have been validated over the last 30 years, RedPrairie provides unparalleled service and support. For additional information, call 1.877.733.7724, or access www.RedPrairie.com.