Alexandria, Va. And Rockville,
Md. – September 9, 2002 – The WorldWide Retail
Exchange (WWRE), the premier business-to-business exchange for
retailers and suppliers, announced today that it has recently
launched a new hosted solution for the storage, management, and
retrieval of brand assets: WWRE® Asset Manager. Based on Artesia
Technologies™ award-winning TEAMS digital asset management
solution and a core component of the WWRE’s WorldWide Design,
Planning and Management (WDP&M) suite, Asset Manager is designed
to streamline the process of launching new product designs –including
privately-labeled goods – by enabling members and their
trading partners to manage and share digital assets online. Digital
assets are media files that include audio, video, photographic
images, multimedia and text that are associated with a specific
product.
“With the launch of Asset Manager, our members will be
able to better leverage the power of the Internet to manage
globally, and work locally on the design, development, and pre-production
approval of products,” explained Maureen Phillips-Houser,
Product Director of WDP&M. “Artesia’s solution
will help us to enable our members and their trading partners
to implement a standards-based solution that will significantly
reduce development costs and speed time to market.”
WWRE® Asset Manager is a component of WWRE’s WorldWide
Design, Planning and Management (WDP&M) suite, which also
includes Process Manager and Meeting Manager. Artesia’s
TEAMS solution is the foundation for Asset Manager, designed
to enable members to easily exchange and store online the entire
kaleidoscope of rich media assets that are contained in product
packages, including images, graphics and drawings. Users can
then search and retrieve the most up-to-date version of that
information, either by identifying the finished product packages,
or by identifying specific product components of that package
like fabric type and weave, logos and print patterns. Asset
Manager will also serve as a holding place for online storyboards
and associated images as well as proposed store layouts or plan-o-grams.
This new offering reflects the growing importance of brand
asset management within today’s retailing environment,
which recent research has indicated can help reduce a retailer’s
content production and management costs by up to 50% (src: AMR
Research’s Retail Consumer Goods Operational Costs to
Soar Without Brand Asset Management, May 2002). By creating
a centralized resource hosting all of an organization’s
brand assets, users benefit from enhanced ability to readily
access relevant material supporting all aspects of multi-channel
marketing. At the same time, they also enjoy the assurance that
appropriate controls and restrictions, such as those applying
to trademarks, promotional dates, localized regulatory compliance
and identified user access, are being applied to ensure only
approved usages of these materials.
Chris Veator, chairman and CEO of Artesia Technologies explains.
“The brand itself represents a significant portion of
a product’s value; we believe that more effective brand
asset management can be just as important to retailers and suppliers
as current efforts targeting supply chain management. As a result,
we are excited to have been selected by the WorldWide Retail
Exchange as their partner in this effort targeting an area –
private-label goods – of significant importance to many
of its members.”
The initial deployment of the new service is targeting retailers
and suppliers within the textile sector. By Q4, 2002, the Asset
Manager is expected to support packaging and marketing. In the
near future, it is anticipated that this service will be extended
to all product areas supported by the Exchange.
About the WWRE
The WWRE is the premier Internet-based business-to-business
exchange for retailers and suppliers. Designed to facilitate
and simplify trading between retailers, suppliers, partners
and distributors, the WWRE currently consists of 62 members
from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America with
combined sales of approximately U.S. $900 billion. To date,
the WWRE has saved its members over $500 million through the
use of online negotiations, its first product offering. For
more information, visit the website at www.wwre.org
or www.worldwideretailexchange.org.
About Artesia Technologies
Artesia Technologies is the software market leader in enterprise
Digital Asset Management (DAM). Artesia’s core product,
TEAMS, enables organizations to capture, manage and dynamically
re-express valuable rich-media assets - video, audio, images,
graphics and text - and leverage them to exploit new business
opportunities. In addition, TEAMS’ open API and support
for industry standards such as Java, CORBA, SCORM and XML enable
the creation of enterprise-scale solutions.
Artesia’s blue ribbon customers include thought leaders
as impressive and diverse as AOL Time Warner Book Group, General
Motors, WGBH Public Broadcasting, Simon and Schuster, Herman
Miller, HBO, Discovery Communications, DreamWorks and many more.
Artesia is a recipient of numerous awards including the 2001
Product of the Year Award from Transform Magazine, the prestigious
Crossroads A-List Award for two consecutive years, and was recently
recognized for the second time by the Seybold Report on Internet
Publishing with the editor’s semi-annual “Hot Pick”
award.
For additional information on Artesia Technologies, please
visit our web site at www.artesia.com.
Artesia Technologies and TEAMS are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of Artesia Technologies. All other names are the
properties of their respective trademark holders.
WorldWide Retail Exchange, LLC. All rights reserved.