Silver Creek Systems Enhances Usability for Corporate Express' Product Information Management System

LOUISVILLE, Colo., March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Silver Creek Systems, a provider of enterprise data usability solutions, has been selected by Corporate Express, Inc., one of the world's largest business-to-business suppliers of essential office and computer products and services. Corporate Express will use the Silver Creek solution to automate the standardization and enrichment of their product information and extend customer value-added services. Corporate Express already uses a Product Information Management (PIM) System to coordinate and manage their product data, but the creation of standardized, enriched product data was largely a manual effort. By automating this process, Corporate Express saw an opportunity to take their PIM investment to the next level.

"We already use the IBM WebSphere Product Center PIM system," said Chuck Coleman, Director of Information Technology for Corporate Express. "And that has automated many aspects of managing our product information, but until now the initial creation of standardized, enriched product information has been a largely manual process. The DataLens System from Silver Creek allows us to encapsulate the knowledge of our product experts to fully automate this process. We can now deliver product information in all the different ways it is needed -- standardized, classified, attribute-rich, -- much faster, more consistently and more efficiently than ever before. The transition from an item-by-item manual process to full automation is a great step forward in efficiency."

"Customers like Corporate Express are turning to IBM and our business partners to help them improve the efficiency of business processes and achieve their goals," said Paraic Sweeney, vice president Product Information Management Solutions, IBM. "IBM is leading the way in helping customers cut through the proliferation of inconsistent product information and delivering our expertise to solve some of our customer's biggest information management challenges."

The DataLens System uses breakthrough semantic technology to extract information from complex and highly variable product data allowing it to be restructured into a more usable form, in real-time. The ability to completely automate this process will allow Corporate Express to drive significant operational efficiencies and consistency for online search and navigation, streamline the creation of custom catalogs for their customers and improve the effectiveness of related processes that require attribute rich product information. Future uses for the DataLens System that may be explored also include the automated translation of product information for multilingual deployments.

"We are proud to add Corporate Express to our client roster of companies that are improving their bottom line by implementing Silver Creek Systems solutions," said Barbara Mowry, president and CEO of Silver Creek Systems. "Companies like Corporate Express recognize that a systematic approach to Enterprise Information Management and Product Information Management are critical strategic initiatives. They also recognize that the rate of change and complexity of the data they manage can outstrip the ability of either manual efforts or any traditional tools to keep up, so they are looking for new and innovative ways to manage their data and deliver competitive advantage. We help them fill that gap and extend the value of their infrastructure investments."

About Silver Creek Systems

Silver Creek Systems, based in Louisville, Colo., is a leading enterprise data usability solutions provider. Based on Data Refraction(TM) and Precise Semantic Identification(TM) technology, the DataLens(TM) System from Silver Creek Systems resolves data incompatibility and delivers usable data for connecting the enterprise. From data standardization to item matching, attribute extraction to categorization and language translation, the DataLens(TM) System delivers a breakthrough in data usability to help improve business performance. For more information visit http://www.silvercreeksystems.com/.

About Corporate Express Corporate Express, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Buhrmann, NV , an international business services and distribution group. Buhrmann is a leading global supplier of office products and graphic systems for the business market. Corporate Express' product offering includes office and computer supplies, imaging and computer graphics supplies, office furniture, document and print management, desktop software, promotional products, and other similar products. Corporate Express has operations in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Through exclusive strategic partnerships, Corporate Express can deliver product to China, Finland, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan. Corporate Express' North American operates 187 facilities, including 38 distribution centers, and the Company employs 10,775 people. The Company's Web site address is http://www.corporateexpress.com/.