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Brown Shoe steps up with SAP to enable strategic business transformation

Leading footwear company brings in SAP solution for growth and profitability
Issued by SAP SA for SAP Africa
Johannesburg, 15 Aug 2008

SAP AG today announced that the leading global footwear marketer, Brown Shoe Company, Inc will replace some of its multiple home-grown and various third-party applications with SAP Business Suite applications to provide tightly integrated solutions.

Within the overall SAP Business Suite, Brown Shoe will utilise the specific industry solution from SAP, the SAP Apparel and Footwear Solution for Consumer Products package, to help manage the entire supply chain.

The system helps support apparel and footwear companies' growth and profitability by aligning its information technology (IT) operations on a single, scalable and flexible platform.

The package enables companies to grow profitability and deliver superior customer value through financial excellence, improved supply chain efficiency and planning and improved employee productivity. The integrated solution will further support Brown Shoe's overall objective to strengthen its interconnected wholesale, sourcing, retail and e-commerce business platforms. Brown Shoe also selected business intelligence solutions from Business Objects, an SAP company, to help close the loop between business strategy and execution.

"The implementation of the SAP ERP application is integral to our efforts to create an interconnected business model and leverage our inter-company synergies to better meet the needs of our customers," said Ron Fromm, chairman and CEO, Brown Shoe Company. "As a proven, scalable operating platform, SAP will be a key enabler toward reaching our strategic goals of becoming the leading fashion footwear marketer."

"We are excited to call Brown Shoe an SAP customer. Brown Shoe needed a business partner to take its business operations to the next level," said Greg Tomb, president and CEO, SAP North America. "We are proud that they selected SAP to be that partner. By leveraging business intelligence for real-time decision-making with an integrated business process platform, we will help Brown Shoe succeed by closely aligning its business strategy and execution."

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SAP Apparel and Footwear

SAP is a leading provider of business software for the retail industry. SAP helps retailers of all sizes to understand, anticipate and inspire their customers, employees and shareholders by delivering results. SAP Apparel and Footwear is an end-to-end, industry-specific application designed for the specific challenges apparel and footwear wholesalers face today. With this software, companies can manage their entire global supply chain, from procuring raw materials to delivering finished styles, and they are also better able to manage large volumes of highly complex master data. By integrating both in-house manufacturing and outsourcing systems, the SAP Apparel and Footwear application helps companies ensure consistent quality and enables the collaboration of marketing, sales and service professionals. In addition, SAP allows apparel and footwear companies the option of implementing solutions in a step-by-step approach and therefore providing an easy, cost-effective means to connect information across their businesses. (Additional information at www.sap.com/industries/consumer/large/businessprocesses/afs.)

SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With approximately 75 000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Business Objects) in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP". (For more information, visit www.sap.com.)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.

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