Content

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Enterprise SupplyManagementAn Overview
NAPPConferenceMarina del Rey
February 2008
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Corporate Summary

• Founded in 1990, Public Since 1996
• Ticker PLUS
• 2,500 Customers
• 30 Locations throughout United States
• Corporate Headquarters in Herndon, VA

Overview
Fiscal (millions)
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ePlus Systems
Enterprise Supply Management from ePlus covers
the complete supply process from supplier
enablement to procurement, settlement and product
disposition.
eProcurement with

• Product Information Mgmt
• Supplier Portal
• Product Data Cleansing
• Catalog Management

Spend Analysis

• Opportunity Analysis
• Supplier Management
• Compliance Reporting

• Simplified Requisitioning
• Workflow Approvals
• Account Distribution
• Budget Checks
• Automatic Ordering
• Sourcing and Bid Analysis
• Receiving
• Inventory Management
• Invoice Matching

Asset Management
Document Management

• Asset Tracking
• Lifecycle Management
• Financial Controls

• Fast On-line Docmt Access
• Drawings, Floor Plans, Maps
• Blueprints, Schematics

Compliance Productivity
Cost Savings
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Product Information Management
Hosted Content Management
Product Information Management
Enterprise Content Management
ePlus Content Services
Supplier Portal
Catalog
Content Advanced
Supplier Enablement
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More Spend Under Control

• Requires that users can find what they are
  looking for in an e-procurement application
• This requires that users have access to
  up-to-date catalogs with robust search
  functionality
• This turn requires a two-pronged approach
• Ability to take disparate supplier data, cleanse
  and normalize it, and put it into a standard
  catalog covering multiple suppliers
• Providing a simple mechanism for on-boarding
  suppliers of all sizes
• A Content Management
• B Supplier Portal

Supply Management
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Contract Compliance

• Once the spend portfolio is defined and assigned
  to suppliers, contracts are set up
• Contract pricing is stored within Procure
• These, combined with the search capabilities with
  the catalogs, ensure that contract items are
  easily located, and ordered every time
• Off-contract purchases are tracked within
  Procure, and their visibility reduces the level
  of non-compliance

Supply Management
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Process Compliance

• Process compliance is achieved through supplier
  enablement, supplier management, and workflow
• Supplier enablement brings more suppliers into
  the mix
• Robust search functionality means users find what
  they need
• Spend Analysis and sourcing lead to stronger
  contracts, enforced by eProcurement
• Workflow ensures that purchase transactions
  comply to these business rules

Supply Management
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Content Management

• Content Management from ePlus
• ePlus has been developing Content Management
  software and services for over 20 years
• During that time, we have developed 500,000
  business rules, across 64,000 commodity groups
• Today, ePlus provides the services and toolsets
  required to create and maintain Content,
  supporting commercially viable e-commerce
  initiatives, and improving supply chain
  communications
• These services and toolsets are known as Content

Content
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Content Management

• Why good Content is important
• Content Management allows users to find the
  products they are looking for, from internal and
  external sources, regardless of the supplier
• Individual supplier catalogs can be accurate, but
  inconsistent from one supplier to another.
• In effect, the suppliers are using different
  languages to describe the same item
• Content Management takes all the items across all
  the catalogs, and normalizes the descriptions,
  enriches the data, and classifies item groups

Content
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Content Management

• Why bad Content is expensive
• If users cant find all examples of what they are
  looking for, their choices will be limited, and
  they cant make the best selection based on
  whats available
• Even worse, if users cant find any examples of
  what they are looking for, even if those items
  are in the catalogs, the user will resort to
  maverick buying
• Purchases made as a maverick buy cost, on
  average, anywhere from 10 to 20 more than
  contracted items

Content
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ePlus Industry Expertise
Automotive Accessories and Parts Bearings Building
Supplies Chemicals Clothing Communications
Equipment Computers, Components
Peripherals Consumer Products Electrical Electron
ics Fasteners Filters Filtering
Units Furniture Gaskets, Seals, Packings HVAC
Refrigeration Hydraulic Pneumatic Equipment
Instrumentation Janitorial Supplies
Equipment Lab Medical Products Landscape
Materials Lubricants, Greases, Equipment Marine
Equipment, Supplies Office Products Paint
Protective Coatings Photographic
Equipment Plumbing Printing Equipment Pumps Rotati
ng Equipment Machinery Safety Tools Shop
Equipment Water Treatment Welding Equipment
Content
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The Content Process
Legacy Systems
How do you get from here . . .
Paper Catalogs
Content
to here?
CDs
Rich Content
eCatalogs Supplier Portal
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The Content Process
Cleansing
Legacy Systems
Aggregation
Validation
Classification
Paper Catalogs
Content
Standardization
Enrichment
Normalization
CDs
Rich Content
QA Review
eCatalogs Supplier Portal
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The Content Process
Legacy Systems
Aggregation
Validation
Classification
Paper Catalogs
Content
Standardization
Enrichment
Normalization
CDs
Spend Management
Rich Content
QA Review
eCatalogs Supplier Portal
Procure
Syndication
Publication
. . . or . . .
Professional content management, only from ePlus.
Third Party Purchasing
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Using Good Content

• Now that good Content ready, it can be put to
  use.
• Publication makes the finished catalog available
  to e-commerce applications, as is, on-line. The
  catalog is connected to e-commerce.
• Syndication takes the finished catalog, and
  prepares the data for import or upload to an
  e-commerce application, off-line. The catalog can
  be syndicated to any number of applications
• ERP e-Procurement Spend Analysis
• Syndicated content is transferred in a variety of
  schema and formats, depending on where it needs
  to go.

Results
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Syndicating Good Content

• A single catalog of good content can be used to
  feed various applications, like so

Results
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Integration with eProcurement

• Content is designed to provide the fuel for
  eProcurement applications
• If an eProcurement system fails to deliver its
  promised potential, it is almost always because
  of lack of good content
• To date, ePlus has integrated its Content
  technology with ERP, eProcurement and financial
  applications
• Oracle Lawson SAP
• Ariba J D Edwards PerfectCommerce

Integration
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Common Language Generator

• CLG is ePlus' Content Management Expert System
• CLG (Common Language Generator) is a patented
  knowledge-based software application that
  transforms traditional legacy data into
  structured content
• CLG currently contains over 500,000 business
  rules that it uses to recognize products and
  associate them with the proper classification
  automatically
• By performing repeatable tasks on thousands of
  items in one process, CLG makes e-commerce
  catalogs affordable and commercially viable

The CLG
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Supplier Enablement
Rule 1 eProcurement is only effective when people
actually use it Rule 2 The biggest inhibitor to
effective eProcurement is poor catalog
content Rule 3 The main contributor for poor
catalog content is lack of supplier enablement
Enablement
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Supplier Enablement

• We help clients capture all of their spend
• not just office suppliers and temp services.
• We have worked with over 60,000 commodities
• Making life easier for your suppliers is critical
  to adoption and success of your program.
• Without Content, there is no eProcurement
• Without supplier participation, there is no
  Content

Enablement
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Supplier Portal

• The Supplier Portal provides an interface to
  Content so that suppliers can self-author their
  catalogs on-line.
• Once information has been provided, it can be
  managed through its lifecycle, using the Content
  toolset.
• Suppliers upload new data, and make changes and
  deletions, to a Staging Catalog. At that time,
  an e-mail message is sent to the Client Catalog
  Administrator.
• The Catalog Administrator then has the option to
  review the data, and approve it or reject it.

The Portal
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Roles Responsibilities
Roles Responsibilities

ePlus or Client activities
Add New Items
Paper Catalogs
Legacy Data/CD's
Content Load
CLG
Maintenance
QA
Production Catalog
These are the basic functions that give you good
content, whether you perform them yourself, or
have ePlus handle it all for you.
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Roles Responsibilities
Roles Responsibilities
ePlus or Client activities
ePlus
Services
Add New Items
Paper Catalogs
Legacy Data/CD's
Aggregation
Content Load
CLG
Enrichment
Hosting
Maintenance
QA
Turnkey
Ready to Go
Production Catalog
ePlus stands ready to perform ALL of your content
management as you wish. At any time, our skill
sets can be transferred to you.
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Roles Responsibilities
Roles Responsibilities
Supplier
ePlus or Client activities
ePlus
Services
Register
Add New Items
Paper Catalogs
Legacy Data/CD's
Aggregation
Add
Content Load
CLG
Enrichment
Import
Hosting
Maintenance
QA
Edit
Turnkey
N
Y
Authorized?
Staging Catalog
Ready to Go
Production Catalog
Similarly, via the Supplier Portal, your own
suppliers can take part in Content Management,
especially for updates.
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Supplier Portal Functions

• Engages new suppliers
• Manages relationships between suppliers to
  facilitate information flow
• Manages day-to-day activities and communications
  between suppliers and the customer relative to
  content
• Works with suppliers to ensure delivery of
  updated content on a regular basis, consistent
  with predefined timelines
• Works with customers and suppliers to ensure
  changes to content are reflected in Staging and
  Production Catalogs

The Portal
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Supplier Portal Benefits

• Suppliers use the Portal in order to lower the
  cost of doing business with their clients
• Clients dont have to upload and maintain
  supplier data themselves
• Catalog Administration workflow routes data for
  approval before going into production
• Facilitates the supply chain process by providing
  the right interface with the right controls,
  between the buyer and the seller

The Portal
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Summary
Rule 1 eProcurement is very effective when people
actually use it Rule 2 The biggest contributor
to effective eProcurement is good catalog
content Rule 3 The main contributor to good
catalog content is effective supplier enablement
Enablement
Compliance
Productivity
Cost Savings
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Procure

• Enterprise or Software as a Service
• Features
• Advanced patented Catalog Management
• Automated Workflow and Configurable business
  rules
• Requisitioning, Approval and Budgeting
• RFQ's, reverse auctions, quotations and Bid
  Analysis
• Purchase Orders, Contracts, service templates
• Desktop and/or Central Receiving
• Inventory Management and Asset Tracking
• Invoice Matching
• Reporting and ad-hoc queries for Actionable
  Information

Procurement
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Procure Benefits
Compliance

• Standard catalogs and contracted prices
• Users have freedom without choice
• Can only order what they can see
• Pre-loaded budget and account information
• Eliminate improper allocations and coding
• Prevent budget over-runs

Procurement
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Procure Benefits
Productivity
Compliance

• Point and click ordering from rich item content
• Workflow and automated business rules reduce
  approval times
• Most information defaults directly, no data entry
• AutoPO for catalog items
• no buyer involvement
• Users check own order status for expediting
• Focus buyers on sourcing and supplier management
• Removed from clerical order placement process

Procurement
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Procure Benefits
Cost Savings
Productivity
Compliance

• Improved spend visibility for sourcing and
  contracting
• Contract enforcement delivers realized savings
• Reduced latency in approvals process and physical
  touches
• Lower transaction costs
• Consolidated and fewer purchase orders
• Automated receiving process
• Greater accuracy
• Less errors
• Less invoice queries
• Less returns
• Less cost

Procurement
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Procure Process
Requisitioner
Requisition
Accounting
Procurement
Approver
On-line Approvals
Budget Check
. . . for matching with invoices from suppliers.
Buyer
Buyers Work Queue
PO Management
RFQ/Bid Management
Quotations
Auto PO
Receiving
Suppliers
Invoices
Order Status and History
Reporting
Accounts Payable
Export Files
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Procure Summary
Procure is a purchasing transaction engine,
supporting multiple business requirements

• Distributes the ordering process to end users
  (requisitioners) so buyers can focus on supplier
  management and sourcing

Procurement
Productivity
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Procure Summary
Procure is a purchasing transaction engine,
supporting multiple business requirements

• Distributes the ordering process to end users
  (requisitioners) so buyers can focus on supplier
  management and sourcing
• Ensures compliance to business rules via built-in
  workflows based on customer profiles

Procurement
Compliance
Productivity
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Procure Summary

• Procure is a purchasing transaction engine,
  supporting multiple business requirements

• Distributes the ordering process to end users
  (requisitioners) so buyers can focus on supplier
  management and sourcing
• Ensures compliance to business rules via built-in
  workflows based on customer profiles
• Ensures compliance to existing corporate contracts

Procurement
Compliance
Productivity
Cost Savings
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Procure Summary
Procure is a purchasing transaction engine,
supporting multiple business requirements

• Distributes the ordering process to end users
  (requisitioners) so buyers can focus on supplier
  management and sourcing
• Ensures compliance to business rules via built-in
  workflows based on customer profiles
• Ensures compliance to existing corporate
  contracts
• Captures accurate spend data for integration to
  other applications, such as sourcing and spend
  analysis

Procurement
Compliance
Productivity
Cost Savings