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PUMA North America Manages Inventory Real-time with SPSS Software
Information Delivered in Minutes Not Days
Source: www.spss.com
Copyright SPSS, Inc. 2005
03/28/05

This is a dated announcement. The material in this announcement could be superceded by more current announcements.

CHICAGO, 03/28/05 — PUMA North America, Inc., a division of PUMA AG, a leading producer of athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories, is using SPSS predictive analytics software to manage its inventory real-time across its domestic retail operations. With SPSS (NASDAQ: SPSS) technologies, PUMA quickly arms its sales staff with information that drives decisions to optimize inventory and order management processes.

PUMA relies on more than 70 independent sales consultants to make important business decisions daily based on data regarding orders, shipments and product availability. PUMA's use of the ShowCase® Suite from SPSS, a business intelligence and data mining solution for organizations using the IBM® eServer iSeries™ (AS/400®) computing platform, enables its sales consultants to create inventory reports in real-time to track retail sales and identify which products and sizes are selling.

The ShowCase reports also track individual store performance on an hourly, monthly, or yearly basis and measure how stores compare with one another. If sales of a particular shoe model increase, PUMA can ramp up production of that shoe; likewise, it can shift inventory or close a store if performance is lagging.

"With SPSS, PUMA has completely replaced 80 percent of our ERP [enterprise resource planning] system reports, which were highly inflexible and required us to contact the vendor for simple template changes," said Karen King, a database analyst for PUMA North America. "Previously, it would take a day or more to create a report. Now, PUMA can obtain reports in less than an hour, and sometimes in as little as 10 to 20 minutes."

"PUMA is benefiting from the capabilities of SPSS to unlock key data found in corporate systems to make informed decisions quickly," said SPSS President and CEO Jack Noonan. "SPSS software is helping PUMA gain valuable insight into how their business is performing. With predictive analytics we will help PUMA manage their future."

More than 85 percent of the top consumer goods companies use SPSS software for such areas as inventory management, survey and market research, customer acquisition and retention and enhancing key business operations.