April 14, 2004

KSS wins government funding for enhancing innovative wholesale fuels pricing solution

KSS, the leading provider of retail fuels and merchandise pricing & promotions solutions to the retail and petroleum industries, has been awarded UK government funding to enhance its RackPrice wholesale fuels pricing solution.

Following a detailed review of KSS’ plans to deliver an enhanced solution and a demonstration of the potential value to target users, the UK Governments’ Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) awarded a £200,000 grant toward research and development costs.

RackPrice will provide petroleum wholesalers and distributors with price/volume elasticity and competitor price tendency estimation to improve demand forecasting for wholesale and commercial fuels. This will enable improvements in both the effectiveness of individual pricing decisions as well as the efficiency, speed and control with which they are made. It will create opportunities to streamline the supply chain through improved forecasting and provide a better understanding of the role of price in balancing supply and demand within the operational constraints of the wholesaler.

The system builds upon the same architecture used for KSS existing and highly successful PriceNet retail fuels pricing solution.

“We are delighted to have secured government funding for RackPrice as it will help accelerate our development efforts. Current wholesale and commercial pricing processes are manual, time consuming and poorly supported by technology. There is widespread recognition of the potential for significant gains in profit margin from more effective price decision-making and better pricing processes. We believe that RackPrice offers adopters a significant annualised profit improvement opportunity, ” commented Iain Cockburn, KSS’ Chief Executive Officer.

About KSS

KSS is the global leading provider of pricing analytics, price management, rules-based pricing and optimization technology and services to fuel retailers and wholesalers in the oil and gas, convenience store, grocery and big box retail industries. KSS clients include global, national and regional companies managing a total of over $100 billion in revenue through more than 20,000 fuel sites and rack terminals, throughout the world. KSS US headquarters are located in Florham Park, NJ with European headquarters in Manchester, UK.

For further information please visit the website at www.kssg.com or contact:

Bob Stein, Chief Executive Officer Tel: +1 (973) 549 1850
Mark Hawtin, Vice President Marketing Tel: +44 (0)161 228 0040

For media inquiries, contact Roy Miller Tel: +1 972 717 3500 ext 235 or rmiller@transsynergy.com

Arrange a consultation, USA (973) 549 1850, Europe +44 (0) 161 228 0040, Contact us

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