In a continued effort to expand the scope and reach of its multi-channel commerce platform, Access Commerce (Skokie, IL and Toulouse, France) has acquired a product information management (PIM) software vendor, making content publishing and a unified product database part of its product arsenal.
By agreeing to acquire four-year-old Exsyde (Paris), Access Commerce gains a major player in the European PIM market, a company that posted revenue of €1.5 million with positive EBIT and net profit in 2005. The ExsydeSuite solutions are deployed by manufacturers to help in the management of electronic content and the creation of a unified product database -- both of which serve as the foundation for exchanging critical product information internally and with suppliers and customers. The value of the acquisition was not disclosed.
In a prepared statement, Access Commerce officials positioned the acquisition and Exsyde's tools as complementary to Access's Cameleon Commerce platform, which is said to simplify the sale of complex products and services through any sales channel. The Cameleon Commerce Suite examines key steps in the Lead-to-Order-to-After-Sales process and optimizes business functions around e-commerce, electronic catalog, guided selling, product and service confirmation, advanced pricing, quote and proposal generation, order management, and BOM/routing generation.
The Cameleon suite also includes sell-side applications for sales teams, channel partners, and self-service customers; configuration components designed to integrate with other e-business and enterprise platforms, including ERP; and a methodology for building and deploying product models across all sales channels and systems.
ExsydeSuite's PIM capabilities complete the process, Exsyde officials said, allowing manufacturers, distributors, and service companies to acquire, manage, publish, and exploit product information. "In this process, ExsydeSuite works upstream to optimize the quality of data, while Cameleon publishes and exploits this product information in multichannel commerce processes such as search engine, product comparison, cross-selling, and up-selling, for example," explained Remi Perrin, president and CEO of Exsyde, in the prepared statement.
By press time, company officials had not returned repeated calls for additional details.
On its own, the PIM arena presents new opportunities for Access Commerce, the company's prepared statement noted. "The PIM market is promising and growing rapidly," said Jacques Soumeillan, president and CEO of Access Commerce, in a statement regarding the acquisition. "Distribution and manufacturing companies are faced with difficulties due to content management that are exacerbated by the Internet as well as by partner and system interdependence. They need to exchange more information in shorter periods of time. Having a complete, up-to-date, and easy-to-publish product repository is critical."
In a related move, Access Commerce recently announced a repositioning of Cameleon Commerce Suite to better reflect its product scope and also target new markets. In March, the company expanded its efforts to penetrate new segments outside of traditional order-driven manufacturing companies, including distribution and service industries. These new markets represented 28% of Cameleon license revenue last year, officials said, making a significant contribution to the 71% annual increase in license revenues from 2004to 2005.
Officials said that Access Commerce will continue to invest in ongoing development of the ExsydeSuite to meet existing customers' needs as well as to meet the additional demands of the growing PIM market. Additionally, Remi Perrin and Jerome Lindstrom, co-founders and co-presidents of Exsyde, are expected to join the Access Commerce management team to oversee this effort.
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