Knowledge Support Systems (KSS) Signs Co-Development Agreement With SAP
Companies to collaborate on solutions for wholesale and retail fuel price management and optimization systems to benefit customers in oil & gas industry
Manchester, October 29, 2007 – Knowledge Support Systems (KSS) Ltd., a leading provider of rules-based pricing, analytics, efficient price execution and price optimization for wholesale and retail fuels, today announced it has signed a co-development agreement with SAP AG for its RackPrice and PriceNet solutions for the oil & gas industry. As part of the agreement, the solutions from KSS will be integrated with the SAP® Business Suite applications, bringing a new level of standardization, integration and control of price management and optimization processes to wholesale and retail fuels distribution.
“Our collaboration with SAP around KSS’ RackPrice and PriceNet solutions means clients can benefit from an unparalleled combination of the industry’s leading pricing systems for wholesale and retail fuels together with the assurance, solution breadth and innovation only an organization such as SAP can truly deliver,” said Mark Hawtin, vice president for business development at KSS Ltd. “This will enable our customers to integrate their pricing with critical order-to-cash processes and supply chain processes, allowing them to benefit both from significant process efficiencies and margin enhancement from more effective pricing decisions.”
Companies in the oil & gas industry are under continuous margin pressure, face increased competition and have to comply with ever tighter pricing legislation and regulatory compliance requirements. Their longer-term prosperity under such difficult conditions requires them to take a more integrated and standardized approach when it comes to the systems that support their core pricing processes. KSS can deliver on these requirements with solutions integrated with the SAP Business Suite.
RackPrice enables wholesale fuels distributors to meet their volume objectives at the maximum achievable margin by better managing price/volume volatility, defining and hitting price strategy targets more precisely, and applying price analytics and optimization to tailor pricing tactics to individual terminals, channels and customer segments. Customers include Alon USA, a national European integrated oil company and a U.S. national petroleum refiner who are experiencing reduced own price volatility and greater price consistency leading to increased customer loyalty and enhanced margins.
PriceNet empowers fuel retailers to meet volume goals at maximum achievable margin by consistently applying pricing rules and optimization, responding more rapidly to market events and analyzing location and grade-specific price sensitivities to strike the optimum profit-volume balance. Customers include Kuwait Petroleum, Statoil, 7-11, Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart and Circle K who have experienced increased pricing agility and margin enhancement through responding to market events more rapidly and making price decisions more effective.
“By integrating KSS RackPrice and PriceNet and enabling their capabilities to be used and leveraged by our existing portfolio of pricing solutions, SAP is helping to ensure that fuel wholesalers and retailers may improve pricing effectiveness and responsiveness across all products and channels of trade from refinery gate to pump,” said Peter Maier, senior vice president of ISM Process Industries at SAP AG. “Joint customers may significantly reduce the costs and risks of integration. The goal of integrating these solutions from KSS is to allow customers to make better business decisions and leverage their existing IT investments to improve their competitiveness in the oil & gas industry.”
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