GAITHERSBURG, Md. – Feb. 28, 2005—GXS, a leading provider of B2B e-commerce solutions, today announced significant growth in 2004 for its global B2B outsourcing solutions, reflecting a rapidly increasing customer need for outsourced business process solutions. GXS B2B outsourcing solutions are a key offering within the GXS Advantage Services portfolio, a continuum of offerings that provide comprehensive community, professional, and managed outsourcing services supporting global B2B deployments.

Enabling organizations to free up internal resources to focus on core business objectives, to reduce costs, and to fill gaps in a customer’s internal expertise, GXS Advantage Services can deliver unique business value in industries such as retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services and manufacturing, where business success is often driven with the effective deployment of e-commerce transactions. In fact, the company attributes 40 percent of its customer growth in 2004 to new engagements with retailers and consumer packaged goods providers. Customers utilizing GXS Advantage Services include 7th Online, Actaris, Eight O’Clock Coffee, Exel Consolidated Services, National Instruments, OFS Portal, Royal Bank of Canada and Thomson Consumer Electronics.

“GXS Advantage Services allow us to focus on our core competency, while giving us access to world-class B2B technology and expertise,” said Brenton Trites at RBC Royal Bank of Canada. “GXS enables us to provide customers with instant visibility into financial information and browser-based tools that eliminate paperwork and enhance business performance.”

According to a strategic analysis report by Gartner entitled “Gartner on Outsourcing, 4Q04,” Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions, represents the fastest growing segment of the IT services market. Gartner projects the worldwide BPO market will grow from $112.9 billion in 2003 to $176.1 billion in 2008, a CAGR of 9.3 percent. Gartner found “greater emphasis on allowing businesses to focus on their core competencies — as opposed to savings — as a primary BPO rationale. Other drivers include directly improving shareholder value (with such improvement tied to the BPO vendor's compensation), improving service levels and innovating processes.”

“GXS Advantage Services allow us to utilize world-class B2B technology and experience, while helping us connect to all of our internal trading partners, as well as suppliers and customers around the world," said Gustavo Civantos CIO at Actaris. "We chose GXS not just as a solutions vendor, but as a business partner that can help us reduce working capital, enhance business growth, and increase cash flows."

GXS has seen these trends reflected in 2004 customer growth. For example, several GXS Advantage Services customers were recently spun out from parent companies, forcing them to establish separate IT infrastructure and operations. GXS was able to quickly implement a robust outsourced solution to solve the customers’ business problem and help them avoid significant potential losses in sales. In addition, the company has seen a significant trend towards customers consolidating worldwide B2B operations into a single global platform. This consolidation not only provides operational efficiencies, but also greatly enhances visibility and reporting capabilities. GXS Advantage Services serve alongside existing IT resources, extending capabilities without adding fixed operational costs.

“GXS B2B outsourcing growth in 2004 is indicative of the tremendous business value, cost savings, and B2B expertise we deliver,” said Steve Keifer, GXS senior director of solutions and product marketing. “Our customers are able to free up internal resources to work on core business objectives, instead of managing technology infrastructure and B2B programs, to help give them a competitive marketplace advantage.”

As a part of the GXS Trading GridSM platform, GXS Advantage Services offers the technical infrastructure to conduct a global B2B program, including data translation, transaction visibility, systems administration and robust reporting capabilities. In addition, GXS Advantage Services provide customers the B2B experts to deliver world-class B2B program management, trading community management, and customer support. The GXS Trading Grid enables customers to automate transactions with their trading community while shielding companies from rapidly changing standards, eliminating manual and duplicative efforts and enabling a higher level of process integration and business intelligence.
GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration and collaboration. Organizations worldwide, including 75 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage the GXS Trading Grid to achieve the perfect balance of supply and demand. Active in the global standards arena, GXS solutions enable customers both large and small, to connect with global partners, synchronies product information, optimize inventory levels and demand forecasts, and accelerate the execution of supply chains.

Headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD., GXS provides sales and support to businesses and their partners worldwide. For more information visit our Web site at www.gxs.com.