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Heinz chooses Esker-powered solution to fax purchase orders directly from SAP® system Global food manufacturer benefits from ability to send SAP system output direct to suppliers London, UK, 25 May 2004 – Esker Software, a global leader in business document delivery solutions, is providing automated fax delivery capability to H.J. Heinz Company, one of the world’s leading suppliers of branded foods, as part of SAP Direct Packaged Services. The Esker solution enables Heinz to achieve time savings and overall communication cost reductions as a result of faxing purchase orders direct from its SAP system. While working on its first SAP implementation in Europe, Heinz was looking for a simple and scalable solution for sending standard SAP output directly to its suppliers. "Other solutions analyzed were expensive or provided functionality that we did not require," said John Glennon, senior project manager with Heinz. Then Heinz found the SAP Automated Fax Packaged Service in the SAP Direct catalog, and saw a cost-effective way to get the functionality it needed. As part of this packaged fax service, the Esker solution gives Heinz the ability to output, via fax, a variety of commonly used business documents. "Our fundamental requirement was to fax purchase orders to suppliers direct from our SAP system using fax numbers from the Vendor master file," said Glennon. "The packaged fax solution did this without any problems, and we are now looking to extend the use of the fax capabilities — for example, to fax order acknowledgement reports each evening to our key customers." A typical purchasing process requires manual handling of documents such as purchase orders and order acknowledgements, which are archived and copied by various internal and external groups involved in the process. "By integrating the Esker fax solution directly with their SAP systems, companies can automate inefficient paperbased purchasing processes to speed up purchasing, lower administrative costs, reduce errors, and ultimately improve the bottom line," said Esker CEO Jean-Michel Bérard. Automation of purchasing document handling typically delivers return on investment within a few months. The entire purchasing process is accelerated, resulting in faster order turnaround. According to Bérard, "Every deployment is different, but past experience shows errors and returns reduced by over 90 percent, paperwork reduced by about 80 percent, and overall purchasing costs cut by up to 90 percent." As a result, organizations benefit from strengthened relationships with suppliers and are often able to negotiate fast-payment discounts. Providing the technology behind the automated fax and email solution featured in the SAP Direct Packaged Services catalog, Esker solutions help SAP customers improve, simplify, or automate their SAP implementations and bring immediate additional value to their SAP investments. SAP works with packaged service provider Proceed Solutions to leverage complementary solutions, such as the Esker solution allowing customers to send either fax or email directly from their SAP systems. About H.J. Heinz Company Heinz is the most global U.S.-based food company and one of the world's leading producers and marketers of branded foods to retail and foodservice channels, with number-one or number-two branded businesses in more than 50 world markets. The Heinz brand is a $2.5 billion global icon and Heinz’s top-15 brands account for two-thirds of annual sales. About Esker Esker is a recognized leader in helping companies eliminate manual paper processes with Esker DeliveryWare Solutions — software and hosted delivery services automating every phase of business document delivery. Specializing in automating the capture, formatting, and delivery of output from SAP systems, Esker solutions work with enterprise applications to streamline document flow without custom programming. Customers gain significant operational efficiencies, save time and costs, and realize ROI in as little as three to six months. Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally and has over 25,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide. Esker global headquarters are in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters are in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, visit http://www.esker.com. # # # Esker offers flexibility to VSI-FAX users with new Fax on Demand Connector Esker VSI-FAX users can expand their fax capacity without additional hardware or phone lines, solve peak capacity problems, and benefit from an additional failover option Madison, WI, December 21, 2004 – Esker, the leading provider of fax solutions and services, has developed a Fax on Demand Connector for their VSI-FAX product to send faxes through Esker’s outsourced fax service, Fax on Demand. This service offers highly efficient and cost-effective fax processing without additional hardware or telephony. The Fax on Demand Connector is available as an optional add-on for Esker VSI-FAX. The benefits of Fax on Demand include: • Expand fax capacity without additional hardware or dedicated phone lines • Provide an additional failover option • Solve peak capacity problems such as end -of-month invoicing Karen Roscoe, product manager for Esker Fax Server Solutions, explains "Esker’s Fax on Demand service fits in well with the current trend towards on-demand information technology. In the long term, Fax on Demand will make it possible to phase out costly fax machines, fax boards, equipment maintenance, dedicated fax lines, and telephony charges." Esker’s Fax on Demand is a pay-per-page service, so customers pay for what they use. Fax on Demand delivers a rapid return on investment through: ¨ Cost control through per-usage billing ¨ Productivity gains by eliminating manual handling of documents (printing then manually faxing) ¨ Elimination of hardware and telephony maintenance costs ¨ Added flexibility and optimized management of peak activity, such as transmitting invoices at the end of the month, with increased capacity available 24/7 ¨ Fax communication control with real-time delivery confirmation ¨ Infrastructure simplification — fewer printers, photocopiers, fax machines, and fax lines |