Easy-to-use and quick to deploy spend management.

Enhanced Sourcing Solutions Help Customers Focus on Strategic Areas of Procure-to-Pay Cycle; Achieve Immediate Savings

Santa Clara, Calif., and Chicago, Il., November 14, 2006 - Ketera, the leading provider of On Demand Spend Management solutions, and The Claro Group, a leading management consulting firm with deep sourcing and procurement skills, today announced an alliance agreement designed to offer customers a one-stop, on demand solution for strategic sourcing and services. Under terms of the agreement, the companies are teaming to provide a joint solution that provides customers with access to a highly leveraged set of procurement tools and a wide range of category savings experience. Additionally, both companies will collaborate on joint sales and marketing initiatives to enhance their positions as leaders in the spend management and strategic sourcing solutions.

Customers often require a coordinated effort to achieve their sourcing and savings goals. The joint strategic sourcing offering from Ketera and The Claro Group offers customers access to an "out-of-the-box" solution that combines strategic knowledge and sourcing expertise along with tactical sourcing solutions and services. As a result, customers can expect to see more value in a shorter amount of time from all their procure-to-pay activities and achieve greater business process excellence.

"We′re very excited to be working with Ketera and believe that this alliance will benefit our clients," says Venanzio P. Arquilla, managing director, The Claro Group. "By combining our knowledge of leading procure-to-pay practices and our commodity sourcing skills with Ketera′s premier on demand spend management solutions, customers can tap into our extensive supplier knowledge base, strategic sourcing capabilities and category expertise to rationalize their supplier base, reduce costs and gain immediate savings."

"Our joint offering with The Claro Group will alleviate many of the challenges procurement professionals face today with managing the procure-to-pay cycle and extracting savings and value from this critical business process," said Burton M. Goldfield, CEO, Ketera. "By combining our on demand solutions with The Claro Group′s deep sourcing knowledge and expertise, our customers can quickly deploy a comprehensive set of solutions and services to help them reduce procurement costs, increase savings in their sourcing initiatives and most importantly, refocus their attention to the internal strategic procure-to-pay needs within their organization."

Next Steps

“ We selected the Ketera eRFX tool because it is quick to implement, cost effective and drives efficiencies into the sourcing process.  Its portal design streamlines the communication, document traffic and analysis associated with conducting our RFPs.  The entire Ketera package has allowed us to run more events with fewer resources, leading to increased procurement efficiencies. ” Michael Feeney Vice President, Corporate Procurement for U.S. Bank

“ When using a hard copy or .pdf system to manage our contracts, Luminex would sometimes miss key milestones. With Ketera Contract management we now have full contract compliance and sufficient advanced warning to take the appropriate actions in a timely fashion.  The Ketera solution also has resulted in huge time savings for us; deciphering language in a contract used to take us hours, now it takes us minutes. ” David Mendoza Director, Strategic Planning and Business Development Group for Luminex

“ We recognized an opportunity to enhance our purchasing process with state–of–the–art technology – without the up–front investment and ongoing resource commitment associated with the implementation of enterprise software. ” Mitch Platt VP Contract Services for Con–way

“ Ketera′s on demand solution is ahead of the competition – we will be able to implement the solution in weeks and we never have to worry about taking the system down to install upgrades or make changes. ” Steve Kenny Vice President Risk Management and General Services for Columbia Credit Union

“ From the beginning, Ketera explained everything to us, both from the technical and sales side. They′ve accommodated our needs and have been very helpful and responsive. ” Michael Kapeles Senior Supply Manager for Cabot Microelectronics

“ Not only does Ketera provide innovative solutions for spend management, they also offer high quality professional services that let you get the most from their solutions. Working with Ketera is like a breath of fresh air. ” Nick Walker Procurement Manager for BTP

“ Ketera's new solution is really an amazing innovation that will revolutionize the purchasing industry. ” Dian Trosclair VP of Supply Chain Management for ServiceMaster

“ Using Ketera, we've lowered our costs and improved our compliance with negotiated corporate contracts. By buying on contract, we typically see a ten percent reduction in cost. ” Jim Cebula Director of Global Purchasing for Kennametal

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