Andersen Consulting and Formation Systems announced today that they are teaming to revolutionize how food and consumer packaged goods manufacturers bring new products to market. The goal of the alliance is to help companies in this marketspace increase revenue growth through new product innovation.
Specifically, Andersen Consulting and Formation Systems will jointly market and deliver a new approach to product development that is powered by Formation Systems’ Optiva software suite, a global product development solution.
The combination of Andersen Consulting’s product development strategy, process design and solution delivery capabilities with Formation Systems’ innovation and product development tools will help clients quickly capture the value lost to inefficiencies in the current product development process.
“We are pleased with the opportunity to team with Andersen Consulting,” said Peter Shields, president and CEO of Formation Systems. “The food and consumer packaged goods industry is extremely competitive. The winners will drive new revenue through innovation, better manage the product development process and integrate this process with the rest of the enterprise. Andersen Consulting and our Optiva software suite give our customers the best possible tools — backed by the strongest technical and management talent — for automating the product development process.”
Together Andersen Consulting and Formation Systems will help manufacturers standardize product information, enable information sharing across the organization and more closely link R&D and marketing functions in order to facilitate collaboration on customer-centric product development. The Optiva software suite will help increase the success rate of new products by making the development pipeline more transparent, enabling management to allocate resources to high-potential products and reducing the time it takes to move a new product from the drawing board to the marketplace.
“Our experience has shown that shareholder value is largely driven by the development of truly innovative new products, said Greg Supron, partner, Andersen Consulting. “Working with Formation Systems is an opportunity to improve the industry’s capability to rapidly discover, develop and launch a product into the marketplace.”
About Andersen Consulting
Andersen Consulting is an $8.9 billion global management and technology consulting organization whose mission is to help its clients create their future. The firm works with clients from a wide range of industries to bring about far-reaching change by aligning their people, processes and technology with their strategy. Andersen Consulting has more than 65,000 people in 48 countries. Its home page address is http://www.ac.com.
On January 1, 2001, the firm will enter the next century with a new name marking its wholly independent status and reflecting the firm’s bold new marketplace positioning.
About Formation Systems
Formation Systems provides solutions that offer customers high return, low risk and quick time to benefit. Formation’s value proposition is to help organizations better serve their customers by bringing more products to market faster, at lower cost and with higher quality. Formation’s customers include large global Fortune 500 companies such as The Coca-Cola Company, Kerry Group plc, Rich Products, Gillette, The Hartz Mountain Corporation, GE Plastics, Akzo Nobel, RPM and The Valspar Corporation. Its corporate web address is www.formationsystems.com
