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Blue Pumpkin Continues Quarterly Momentum By Reaching 1,000th Customer Milestone and Capturing Greater Market ShareNissan Motor Acceptance Corp. tops first quarter customer wins that include Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Citibank, eBay and TimeWarner CableSunnyvale, CA – October 23, 2002 – Blue Pumpkin, an industry leader in enterprise workforce optimization solutions, today announced strong first-quarter results that saw the signing of the company’s 1000th customer, Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. Other highlights in the new fiscal year include the release of major new products, acquisition of a key partner company and continued sales momentum at an impressive rate of over 40 new customers per quarter. These results support the latest analyst research that Blue Pumpkin continues to capture a greater share of an expanding market, as the company approaches its five-year anniversary this month. International strategic market consultancy Frost & Sullivan this month reported that Blue Pumpkin earned for the first time the second- largest market share – less than two percentage points away from the top spot. Industry accolades also support the company’s strong growth and market leadership position. Last week, Inc magazine ranked Blue Pumpkin fifth on the Inc 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. For the second year in a row, Blue Pumpkin was also named to the Upside Hot 100 list of private companies in the previous quarter. "Standing still and playing it safe are not part of our philosophy," said Doron Aspitz, chief executive officer and co-founder of Blue Pumpkin. "Rather, our culture is defined by strong customer affinity, relentless execution and innovation. We like to constantly push the envelope of innovation and challenge our competitors to keep up. Our tremendous customer growth validates our unique approach to solving business problems and our strategy for propelling Blue Pumpkin and the industry forward for a very long time." Strong Q1 Customer Growth Signing Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. as its 1,000th customer represents an exciting milestone for Blue Pumpkin on its path to the largest market share. The company recorded significant sales with new customers as well as existing customers, particularly in the consumer goods, financial services, healthcare and retail sectors. New customers in North America include: Blue Cross/Blue Shield (Montana), Chubb Group of Insurance, Citibank (Toronto), eBay, Time Warner Cable (San Antonio), World Access Service and many others. New international customers include: Domestic & General Group Plc, Flight Directors, Freedom Finance and many others. Additional purchases from existing North America customers include: 21st Century Insurance, Avon, Best Buy, Dell, Federal Reserve Bank, Goodyear, KPMG (New Jersey), Maytag, New York Life Insurance, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, World Savings & Loan and Yahoo!. Existing international customers sales include: Carphone Warehouse, GE Capital Poland, Holiday Line, Inland Revenue NZ, Nationwide, Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company, SNT and Telegate. "Workforce optimization is critical to achieving our business goals," stated Sean Hicks, senior manager of consumer communications for Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. "As our operation grows more complex, Blue Pumpkin helps ensure that technology and workforce processes are aligned so that our people can provide efficient and effective customer service. Those are the fundamental business issues we’re concerned about that directly impact the bottom line." "The Science Behind the Art of Managing People" ‰ Blue Pumpkin’s technological innovations continue to drive customer momentum. In the previous quarter, Blue Pumpkin announced new major offerings to help customers more rapidly achieve their business goals. Blue Pumpkin Advisor and Blue Pumpkin Activity Manager applications complete the Workforce Optimization Suite, the industry’s first end-to-end, highly integrated system to align employee performance with business goals. The Blue Pumpkin Workforce Optimization Suite is built on top of another new offering, Blue Pumpkin Fusion, a J2EE-based platform that integrates workforce optimization systems across the enterprise, protecting and leveraging other customer investments. Blue Pumpkin Fusion also enables 24/7 availability and virtually unlimited scalability, accommodating organizations of any size. But more than technology, Blue Pumpkin announced new professional services capabilities to differentiate itself as a true solutions provider. The company last quarter acquired the contact center division of Onward, a long-time customization and integration partner. Blue Pumpkin also unveiled valuable strategic consulting services to help customers manage change, implement the right processes and best leverage their technology investments. "We’ve gained strength in the market by perfecting the science behind the art of managing people – blending next-generation technology with proven business consulting practices," continued Aspitz. "While others offer tools to solve a limited set of workforce-related problems, our vision is firmly set on the bigger picture. We recognize the market need for a unified suite of solutions, all interoperating with each other to help customers focus on and rapidly achieve their business goals." Consistent with this vision, Frost & Sullivan reported: "The definition of workforce management software is expanding. While the application has always been about more than forecasting and scheduling to encompass planning and performance, the concept is expanding beyond the contact center and evolving into an enterprise-wide optimization tool." Blue Pumpkin solutions optimize and align workforce-related processes, including strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting, scheduling, time tracking, performance evaluation and more – ensuring that people are performing at their highest levels and helping the customer at the right place and right time. About Blue Pumpkin Blue Pumpkin is a leader in workforce optimization, a fast-growing market enabling businesses to leverage their most critical resource: their people. Blue Pumpkin solves the urgent needs of more efficiently deploying resources and effectively managing employee performance – significantly impacting customer service, loyalty and profitability. The Blue Pumpkin Workforce Optimization Suite applications form a comprehensive, highly integrated system and include Planner, Director-Enterprise, Activity Manager, Advisor and other products. Professional services implement best practices and manage change to build the right processes and fully leverage technology solutions. As the first to offer extensive services in addition to applications and customer support, Blue Pumpkin helps people and businesses successfully execute on their goals. Blue Pumpkin has more than 1,000 customers in a wide range of industries, including many Global 2000 companies such as ADP, Apple Computer, Airborne Express, AOL/CompuServe Europe, AT&T, Borders Group, FedEx, General Mills, JetBlue Airways, Kaiser Permanente, KitchenAid, TimeWarner Cable, and Verizon. An advanced ecosystem of over 150 partners supports Blue Pumpkin customers with other products and services. For more information about Blue Pumpkin and its products, please visit http://www.bluepumpkin.com © 2002 Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Blue Pumpkin and Blue Pumpkin Software are registered trademarks of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc. The Blue Pumpkin logo is a trademark of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Editorial Contact: Renee Maler Blue Pumpkin Software 925 968 9495 rmaler@bluepumpkin.com top of page |
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