Blue Pumpkin Continues String of Profitable Quarters and Growth in Q2 (email this article)

Sunnyvale, Calif. – December 15, 2003 – Blue Pumpkin (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), an industry leader in enterprise workforce optimization solutions, today announced yet another consecutive quarter of  profitability – fueled by a number of large customer deals, a significant increase in revenues worldwide and other wins to close out the second fiscal quarter ending November 30.

Affirming the company’s momentum and continuing success, Blue Pumpkin was recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in America on the prestigious Inc 500 list for a second consecutive year.  In addition, analyst studies published in Q2 from Frost & Sullivan and Saddletree Research rank Blue Pumpkin in a virtual tie for the top industry market share in 2002 and in the lead position in early 2003.

Paul Stockford, chief analyst for Saddletree Research, concluded: "Overall, Saddletree Research believes that most competitors…still view Blue Pumpkin as the company to beat, and as a company with significant potential to continue to gain market share."

"The fact that we have sustained profitable operations, particularly under difficult economic conditions, tells us that we are doing the right things," said Nilesh Shah, chief financial officer and executive vice president of Blue Pumpkin.  "We are seeing an intensifying demand for Blue Pumpkin solutions globally – particularly with larger organizations – all contributing to an upward trend in license growth and positioning us for continued profitability and growth."

New Q2 Customers and Partners Worldwide
Expanding its customer base in a number of vertical industries, Blue Pumpkin signed on the following companies in North America: the American Heart Association, Genentech, Knight Ridder, Overnight Transportation, Pacificare, Saint-Gobain and others in North America.  Internationally, new customers include: Arbejds Markeds Styrelsen (AMS), Arab National Bank, Gebuhreneinzugszentrale (GEZ), Gulf Air Worldwide Contact Centre, New Zealand Post/Kiwibank, Pillar and TOT Corporation.

Along with new business wins for the quarter, Blue Pumpkin also enjoyed strong additional purchases from existing customers as a measure of solid customer satisfaction. In North America, returning customers include: AAA Carolinas, Commonwealth of PA, Direct Energy, Federal Reserve Bank (Boston), First Union Bank, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Kaiser Foundation Plan (Georgia), MassMutual Financial Group and Siemens Business Systems.  In other regions globally, returning customers include: Bank Central Asia, BBC Technology, Emirate Bank, Publicar S.A. and Telegate India.

To accelerate worldwide customer growth, Blue Pumpkin strengthened its global distribution channels in Q2 through new and broader partnerships with key solutions providers such as: Datacraft (India), Dimension Data (India), Empathy Systems (Denmark), Omron (Japan), Optimis (UK), Servion (India) and Telia (Sweden).  By forging local relationships in strategic regions worldwide, Blue Pumpkin can deliver better service consistent with cultural protocols and sensitive to economic conditions as well as expedite time-to-market for new solutions.

Award-Winning Innovations in Performance Management
Blue Pumpkin rolled out more innovations in the second quarter – introducing new industry benchmarking capabilities that enable companies to measure business performance against that of peers and competitors.  Developed with prominent analyst firm Gartner and tapping into their extensive databases, industry benchmarking helps Blue Pumpkin customers establish service as a competitive advantage with a complete performance management solution.

Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, Blue Pumpkin will soon be announcing another major Product of the Year award – for its new Advisor Express and Advisor Enterprise performance management solutions.  With such inventive products beyond traditional workforce management, Blue Pumpkin continues to set the foundation for future growth and even greater market share.

About Blue Pumpkin
Blue Pumpkin is the only workforce optimization vendor that that can deliver both the science and the art required to optimize the performance of a company’s most valuable asset – its people.  Addressing critical business challenges with both innovative technology – the science – and best-practices professional services – the art – we help our customers align performance measurements with business goals, develop strategic staffing plans, deploy resources, evaluate the results, and implement on-going improvements.  Blue Pumpkin solutions deliver proven value to more than 1,000 organizations worldwide such as AOL Time Warner, AT&T, eBay, E*TRADE, Federal Express, JetBlue, Mercedes-Benz and Visa.  www.bluepumpkin.com.


© 2003 Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc.  All rights reserved. Blue Pumpkin and the Blue Pumpkin logo are registered trademarks of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.