TrueDemand and O4 Corporation Announce Partnership

Posted March 26, 2008

Partnership increases the effectiveness of in-store merchandising with unprecedented lines of communication between office-based teams and mobile field workforce.

TrueDemand Software, Inc., the leading provider of solutions that help consumer product companies lift sales at the shelf,and O4 Corporation, the world’s leading provider of next-generation mobile software solutions, today announced a partnership to help companies better forecast the demand for their products at the retail level and more quickly replenish supply in response to demand fluctuations.

TrueDemand’s software-as-a-service suite provides valuable data of demand and delivery for store-level issues involving product turn, promotions, new product introductions and merchandising activities. Integrating TrueDemand’s solutions with O4’s software, which runs on a PDA-style device and electronically automates field activities, provides a platform that allows retail field representatives to effectively plan their visits and execute in-store audits. This partnership provides a “closed loop” system that makes it possible to prioritize activities and reduces the amount of wasted effort by a mobile field workforce while bringing more visibility and actionable data to the account team.

Leading industry analysts have been urging consumer product companies and retailers to embrace the kind of capabilities that TrueDemand and O4 are bringing to the market. “Organizations need to improve their abilities to recognize and respond to products not on the shelf,” said Mike Griswold in the November 2007 AMR Research report,

“Improving On-Shelf Availability: Look in the Mirror-It’s Closer Than You Think.” He added that when optimization systems are used to sense out of stocks and manual intervention occurs by sending a person to the store, sales increase $300 to $500 per merchandiser visit.

“We look forward to working with O4 to help our joint customers to predict and prevent the most common causes for suppressed sales at the shelf,” said Eric Peters, CEO of TrueDemand. “By directly linking retail account teams with their field merchandising workforce, we have opened up unprecedented lines of communication that enable faster, more accurate sales execution on a daily basis.”

“Leveraging the data driven by TrueDemand’s technology will provide customers with the option of greater insight from the field about in-store conditions,” said Harris Fogel, president of O4. “We are pleased to be partnering with TrueDemand on this initiative and look forward to an enhanced automated field solution that increases productivity and ultimately benefits customers.”

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