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Sterling Commerce Delivers New e-Commerce and Warehouse Management Capabilities

Announcement posted by Sterling Commerce.. 22 Jan 2009

New Version of Sterling Selling and Fulfilment Suite Helps Companies Enhance the Cross-Channel Shopping Experience and Drive Operational Efficiency
Melbourne, 22 January 2009 – Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) company, today announced the general availability of the Sterling Selling and Fulfilment Suite 8.0. The Sterling Selling and Fulfilment Suite is a comprehensive solution for the entire inquiry-to-cash process. With this new version, Sterling Multi-Channel Selling has broadened its e-commerce capabilities for the store and call centre to enhance the cross-channel shopping experience, and Sterling Multi-Channel Fulfilment has added new inventory management capabilities to drive operational efficiency and reduce costs.

“To differentiate themselves and grow revenue, retailers must deliver a seamless cross-channel experience while also reducing costs, but they’re struggling to do that. They must transform their approach and embrace a process-centric view that spans across the whole fulfilment process, from order capture through delivery to the customer,” said Michael Vulcan, ANZ Managing Director, Sterling Commerce. “The new version of the Sterling Selling and Fulfilment Suite is uniquely able to help companies achieve that transformation by extending our leadership in addressing the complex challenges companies face in both their selling and fulfilment processes.”

Sterling Multi-Channel Selling allows companies to create a consistent, unified buying experience across all available touchpoints – Web, Store, Call Centre, and Field Sales. In this new version, Sterling Commerce has broadened its e-commerce capabilities for the store and call centre channels to enable customers to order from anywhere and companies to fulfil from anywhere. New e-commerce capabilities include:

Ordering capabilities to enable customers to pick up a cart created on the Web and complete it in the call centre or store.
Real-time inventory availability can now be accessed through all sales channels.
Order-level store pickup functionality provides customers with product delivery flexibility by enabling each ordered item to be scheduled for pick-up at different store locations.
Return and exchange capabilities, such as support for blind returns, are now available through the call centre, helping call centre agents assist customers more quickly and efficiently through these processes.

For multi-channel fulfilment, Sterling Commerce has enhanced Sterling Warehouse Management System (WMS), a solution that brings operational discipline to complex warehouse operations by giving managers robust planning, execution and measurement tools. In this version, Sterling Commerce has added new inventory management capabilities to drive operational efficiency and reduce costs, including support for:

Consigned inventory, which provides flexibility in managing inventory ownership by allowing a warehouse to trigger the transfer of ownership based on operational events (receiving, picking, shipping etc.).
Serialisation, which enables improved inventory accuracy by automating the capture of serial numbers using “from” and “to” ranges. Sterling WMS has built-in logic for computing the quantity based on those ranges based on more complex computations.
Shipment profiling, which helps optimise picking and shipping operations by allowing the grouping of orders based on shipment profile criteria. This enables companies to more efficiently ship orders and improve customer service by using different criteria like carrier appointments, customer pickups, and promotions.

Sterling Selling and Fulfilment Suite is a unique set of applications for managing the entire process of inquiry to cash that removes the barriers to successful customer and supplier interactions by providing a single end-to-end view of multi-channel selling and fulfilment operations. The suite allows companies to present a unique buying experience for their prospects, customers and partners in all the ways they sell - Web, call centre, store and field sales. In addition, it provides companies with control over the entire fulfilment lifecycle - from order management, to warehouse operations, to transportation and delivery, to supply management, to returns and settlement.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) company, helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, supply chain fulfilment, and payments management to optimise business performance inside and outside their enterprise. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 24 countries around the world. More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com.au.

ENDS