Esker Sales Order Processing Solutions Achieve Impressive Sales Growth in 2011

Esker, a worldwide leader in document process automation solutions, today announced a 21% increase in 2011 sales growth of its sales order processing solutions. This upsurge, particularly significant in the United States, confirms the increasing importance of customer orders in business document process automation.

Automated processing is typically associated with customer and vendor invoices; however, the management of customer orders represents a valuable opportunity for today’s businesses. Faced with a multitude of reception modes (e.g., fax, email, postal mail, Web, EDI, etc.), order processing has become more and more complex, despite being a critical process for customer satisfaction, commitment, revenue and competitive advantage.

Esker leading the way

2011 was an outstanding year for Esker Sales Order Processing automation solutions:

• Sales grew 21% versus 2010 — 28% of which was in the United States
• Strong customer portfolio — BASF, Kimball, Medrad, Siemens, Systagenix and Whirlpool trust Esker to automate their customer orders
• Customers in the medical industry and business-to-business distribution, two sectors significantly impacted by sales order processing, contacted Esker for help managing their customer orders

"Document process automation is not only about customer and vendor invoices — customer orders are, very often, the most important business document to automate,” said Jean-Michel Bérard, CEO and President of Esker. "In fact, most businesses only deal with orders once they are in the ERP, but what happens from the moment they are received to the moment they are keyed into the system? It is precisely at this stage that automation brings the most benefits in terms of productivity gains, revenue and competitive advantage.”

Benefits of automating customer orders

By eliminating manual data entry, sales order automation delivers an immediate return on investment (ROI):

• Improved order processing: automatic assignment and order creation with fewer errors
• Traceability: visibility of orders waiting to be entered and eradication of lost orders
• Productivity gains: elimination of order entry time
• Improved customer service and SLA compliance: orders processed quicker and according to priority levels; improved delivery times
• Improved cash flow and working capital through accelerated cash receipts
• Decreased document storage costs with electronic archiving

Customer success story

Siemens Australia, an Esker customer, measured their results in terms of ROI, achieving: 65% reduction in order processing time; 80% reduction in time to execute non conform orders; and 70% reduction in deadline times for agreements on service levels (waiting time before the order is processed).

"We use the Esker solution for all our customer orders, whether they arrive by email or fax,” said Tom Armour, Process Analyst and Project Manager, Siemens Australia. "They are either created in SAP^® without any manual intervention or they are rejected. An image of every customer order is now available as an attached document in SAP. After six months of implementation, we have already met our tangible objectives and have even exceeded the intangible ones.”

About Esker

Esker is the worldwide leader in document process automation solutions. Addressing all types of business processes from accounts payable and accounts receivable to sales order processing and procurement, Esker cloud computing solutions enable companies to automate the reception, processing and sending of any business document with one platform. Esker helps over 80,000 companies across the world to reduce the use of paper and eliminate manual processes while improving their productivity, efficiency and environmental impact.

With 36 million euros in sales revenue in 2011, Esker operates in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. Esker is listed on the NYSE Alternext in Paris (Code ISIN FR0000035818). For more information, visit www.esker.com. Follow Esker on Twitter at twitter.com/eskerinc and join the conversation on the Esker blog at www.quitpaper.com.

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