20 December 2004 — GXS today announced the European availability of Order Lifecycle Visibility (OLV), one of several customer-proven value chain solutions offered as part of the ground-breaking GXS Trading Grid. A web-based service in the Trading Grid, OLV helps European companies and their trading partner communities benefit from productivity and operations gains by easily automating the forecast to settlement process.

The Order Lifecycle Visibility rollout in Europe highlights GXS’ commitment to provide a globally accessible platform to streamline inter-enterprise business processes. Designed by Order Management professionals, OLV enables companies and their trading partners to view, transact and collaborate on the entire forecast to settlement process. OLV answers key questions such as “was the order accepted?”, “did the order ship on time?”, and “what is the status of the invoice”.

“We are excited to launch Order Lifecycle Visibility in Europe,” said Michael Del Sarto, director of collaboration services for GXS. “100% trading partner automation across the order to invoice process is a top priority for companies in all geographies. OLV has proved enormously popular with US companies, and our European customers show the market is poised to take-off in 2005.”

The OLV solution provides a modular design enabling customers to start with one module and add others according to their business requirements. Modules include:

• Forecast and Order – Sharing electronic forecasts and orders. A company and its trading partners can view orders, commit to requests, and execute higher-level processes such as split and direct-store delivery commitments.
• Ship and Receive – Co-ordinating shipping and receiving processes for inbound shipments via notice visibility and bar code label generation. Actual shipped quantities can be verified against those received ensuring accuracy.
• Invoice and Settle – Provides e-invoicing, self-service invoice inquiries and payment visibility.

OLV enables customers to configure business rules to match their business processes, to set-up e-mail-based alerts and to enforce high-levels of data quality. Packaged with GXS’ world-class community ramping services, and a flexibly funded pricing model, OLV delivers a robust, affordable, end-to-end solution for extended enterprise collaboration.

“The launch of OLV is an important step in solidifying GXS’ position as a leading provider of collaboration and visibility solutions,” said Bobby Patrick, senior vice president of marketing for GXS. “The GXS Order Lifecycle Visibility service and its rapid adoption by leading companies is a clear testament to GXS’ unique position to successfully enable global business process networks. With several recent customer wins in the retail, high-tech, automotive and manufacturing industries, GXS continues to find success with solutions it provides.”

According to Gartner’s Andrew White, “Enterprises that use technology to streamline operations and business processes with their suppliers have been highly successful.” GXS customers using OLV have experienced this, enjoying the benefits of improved internal productivity through elimination of paper-based processes and improved data quality. Many companies are using OLV to extend their internal, back-end systems to their trading partners and are leveraging OLV functionality through their supplier portals, lowering inventory and transportation costs by offering better visibility on inbound shipments.

A recent Gartner report confirms: “The supply chain is as much intra-enterprise as extra-enterprise. From supporting increasingly sophisticated collaboritive extensions for traditional supply chain planning and execution to providing mature electronic data interchange, SCM has to meet fresh challenges created by market pressures and new enabling technologies.”1 Note 1: “Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Management, 2004,” Alexander Drobik, Andy Kyte, Benoit J. Lheureux, Jeff Woods and Andrew White, July 8, 2004.

About GXS Trading Grid
Global eXchange Services Trading Grid® is a globally-accessible, real-time platform for business process networking. Trading Grid helps customers automate global trading communities by shielding complexity from rapidly-changing standards, eliminating manual and duplicative efforts, and enabling a new level of process integration and business intelligence. Through direct integration with GXS’ Trading Grid, both large and small customers can extend existing ERP investments and cost-effectively achieve new levels of collaboration and business success. For more information on Trading Grid, visit www.gxs.com/TradingGrid.

About GXS
GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration and collaboration. Organisations worldwide, including more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage GXS Trading Grid® to achieve balance between supply and demand. Active in the global standards arena, GXS solutions enable customers both large and small, to connect with global partners, synchronise product information, optimise 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 about GXS visit www.gxs.co.uk.