J.D. EDWARDS DELIVERS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTION AS PART OF ITS ACTIVERA KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Enterprise business software provider J.D. Edwards & Company has announced new business intelligence functionality and enhanced analytical capabilities as part of its larger ActivEra Knowledge Management strategy.

New business intelligence functionality includes a balanced scorecard application and executive information system, as well as improved analytical and data warehousing capabilities. Additionally, the company has signed partnerships with Armstrong Laing Group and Cognos Ltd. to deliver activity-based management technology and information modeling tools.

Taken together, these applications and partnerships are intended to provide customers more timely and complete access to information, enabling a company's employees to take a more strategic approach in supporting their companies' business goals with the ability to act as a virtual enterprise.

J.D. Edwards' business intelligence solution provides an integrated interface for data warehousing enabling users to obtain structured, quantitative and numerical data. J.D. Edwards' custom designed, open and flexible data warehouse extracts and transforms information into data models. Additionally, enhanced OLAP capabilities organize the information to facilitate decision making.

J.D. Edwards executive information system is based on several key performance indicators (KPIs) and provides executives with such timely information as the company's gross margin, sales results and on-time customer delivery.

The balanced scorecard functionality enables executives to align their enterprise's strategic objectives with individual, departmental and cross-divisional performance goals. Additionally, J.D. Edwards' balanced scorecard allows companies to benchmark their effectiveness based on the key performance indicators. This functionality is available in the most recent release of OneWorld.

J.D. Edwards' business intelligence solution and its partnerships with Armstrong Laing and Cognos enable users to more effectively consolidate, manage, analyze and disseminate critical information for better decision making. Armstrong Laing's Metify Activity-Based Management solution transforms transactional data into process and activity insight, adding a key component to J.D. Edwards' business intelligence solution. Cognos' HeadStart analysis reporting modules offer detailed ad hoc reporting and multi-dimensional, drill-down analysis for better scenario modeling and distribution of information.

"Companies competing in the information economy need to be able to leverage multiple sources and types of data for fast, effective, strategic business decisions," said Doug Massingill, president and CEO at J.D. Edwards. "After several years of development, we're drawing from our collective knowledge on managing information and enabling our customers to use it as a competitive weapon. In the information economy businesses that combine speed with knowledge will be able to turn ideas into action."

In-Depth Ability to Manage and Share Knowledge

The ActivEra Knowledge Management strategy builds upon the ActivEra business model and ActivEra E-Business solution (see related announcement May 19). Easily accessible through J.D. Edwards ActivEra Portal (scheduled to be available in Fall 1999), the solution will help users personalize content and applications suited to their needs, and help manage and leverage the knowledge chain through collaboration with employees, customers, suppliers and trading partners.

Comprised of business intelligence, content management and human capital management, J.D. Edwards' knowledge management solution will integrate disparate sources of data including structured sources, such as traditional data warehouses and enterprise software systems, and unstructured sources including document management systems and company Websites, and tacit sources gathered from users with best-practices knowledge. As a result, the intellectual capital of the knowledge management solution can be extended and personalized for many users thereby enabling more intelligent collaboration with customers and suppliers, anywhere and anytime.

"To take full advantage of their intellectual capital and drive innovation, organizations must be able to link people and content, collaboratively to share their knowledge and experience," said David Yockelson, vice president and director of electronic business strategies at META Group.

"Key technologies involved in the management of knowledge include business intelligence, content management, personalization and profiling, and search/retrieval. These knowledge management tools are particularly important when information must be derived from multiple sources and delivered with contextual relevance to a broad community of users."

J.D. Edwards offers an in-depth approach to managing and sharing information with three components that integrate and deliver the comprehensive knowledge to allow for effective decision making. In addition to business intelligence, the knowledge management solution will include:

• A Content Management solution that will enable the navigation, search, filtering and prioritizing of information gathered from a multitude of sources including Web-sites and office documents. The applications support the solution's ability to extend, personalize and collaborate disparate sources of information to partners, customers and suppliers. The company's ActivEra Portal will present the information according to the user's preferences aiding in the decision making process. This functionality is scheduled to be available in Fall 1999.
• A Human Capital Management solution will assist in the methodology phase of decision making, helping customers develop business process models and decision points. The applications will gather and document best-practices information from partners, customers and employees and leverage that information throughout the organization by distributing the tacit knowledge obtained by individuals. The ActivEra Knowledge Management methodology is modeled after J.D. Edwards' own knowledge management practices. Partnerships supporting J.D. Edwards' methodology are scheduled to be announced summer 1999.

About J.D. Edwards

J.D. Edwards provides Idea to Action software for managing the enterprise and supply chain. The company's integrated applications give customers control over their front office, manufacturing, logistics/distribution, human resources and finance processes for the consumer products, industrial and services industries.

J.D. Edwards enables Idea to Action with ActivEra, a collection of tools and technologies that extend the J.D. Edwards SCOREx and AIMx supply chain solutions and OneWorld and WorldSoftware enterprise business software. ActivEra allows customers to change their enterprise software quickly and easily during and after implementation. The company's solutions operate in multiple computing environments, including Windows NT, UNIX and OS/400, and are Java and HTML enabled.

Founded in 1977, J.D. Edwards is headquartered in Denver and posted fiscal 1998 revenues of $934 million. Additional information can be obtained by contacting the Company at 800/727-5333, or via the Internet at http://www.jdedwards.com.