Amsterdam, July 2, 2003 - Lawson Software (NASDAQ: LWSN) today announced that BMW Financial Services, BMW FS, has gone live with the initial phase of its implementation of Lawson's Services Automation, SA. The software will provide BMW FS with a new approach for managing its busine4ss and IT projects. The pilot implementation was installed in less than five months at its Munich, Germany facility. BMW FS plans to deploy Lawson SA across the division in Europe, Asia and the United States.
The driving force for BMW FS was the need to view and manage the overall status and progress of all projects, across multiple locations. They also needed to improve their resource management and allocation to ensure that staff were deployed in the most effective and efficient way for the business.
For BMW Financial Services an overall view of their project portfolio with quick access to project status information was the most significant challenge. Tied closely to this was the allocation of human resources, which is critical in determining BMW FS's ability to accept new initiatives and projects.
Simon Rigden, Vice President of International Operations at Lawson Software said: "Lawson SA was designed for this particular purpose. Through our own customer research, we've learned that project-based organisations, like BMW Financial Services are often misinformed about how to proceed with IT projects and subsequent human resources. Terminating or sustaining a project requires a great deal of specificity and context from across the company - we tie these processes together so that informed decisions can be made."
Lawson Services Automation is designed to automate the management of information and resources in internal service environments, such as IT departments.
"Lawson's strengths, which includes a rapidly deployable, web-based architecture that provides full integration between the front- and back-office, enable organisations to optimise organisational performance, and provide a significant return on investment," said David Hofferberth, research director of professional services automation, Aberdeen Group.
Notes to editors
Lawson SA is the leading web-based Professional Services Automation software. It allows the integration of your core business processes of selling, managing and delivering services to both internal and external clients. Accessible to authorised users, anywhere, via any standard browser, Lawson SA collects all relevant data in a centralised storeroom allowing all your users (via role-based security), analysis of customer statuses, project time scales, estimates to completion and budget constraints.
About BMW Financial Services
BMW Financial Services is well established as an international service provider for individual leasing and finance offers. It supports the sale of BMW Group products through attractive financial products and services. In addition, BMW Financial Services enhances the BMW customer relationship by offering comprehensive banking and insurance services tailored for the BMW driver.
BMW Financial Services comprises 26 worldwide subsidiaries of the Financial Services Division of BMW AG, headquartered in Munich, Germany.
About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides business process software solutions that help services organisations in the healthcare, retail, professional services, public sector, financial services, and other strategic markets achieve competitive advantage. Lawson's solutions include enterprise performance management, distribution, financials, human resources, procurement, merchandising and services automation. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., Lawson has offices and affiliates serving North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Additional information about Lawson is available at www.lawson.com.
Automation software
The main features of Lawson SA are:
- Opportunity management - This allows you to evaluate, track and analyse your pipeline to maximise your revenue.
- Resource management - Streamlines workflow and eliminates bottlenecks, can help you to optimise your staff's utilisation by balancing demand with capacity and dramatically improving the time-to-fill.
- Customer relationship management - Can maximise management performance and provide your clients with the information they need when they want it.
- Invoice management - Provides on-line invoices dramatically reducing the billing cycle and enabling better management of costs.
- Currently BMW Financial Services is using version 4.3 due to the in house browser technology the company has as standard. However they are looking to upgrade this technology in the near future and deploy either Lawson SA 5.0 or 5.1 in 2004.
Contacts
Donate Broenland
Weber Shandwick
+31 (0)70 3121070