Business Objects Announces Planning and Budgeting Solutions for Retail; New Solutions Help Retailers Optimize Financial and Operational Performance, Create Accountability, and Foster Collaboration

In the fiercely competitive and dynamic retail industry,successful retailers must be able to accurately forecast financialperformance and improve collaboration across the company. To addressthe unique challenges of retailers, Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leadingprovider of business intelligence solutions, today announced newbudgeting and planning solutions for the retail industry. WithBusiness Objects Planning for Retail, retailers can model and optimizeperformance, create accountability to corporate goals, and promoteintra-departmental collaboration. Building on existing analyticsolutions for the retail industry, Business Objects now offerscustomers a comprehensive set of capabilities that enable retailers inany functional role -- including finance, merchandising, supply chain,and store operations -- to improve operational and financialperformance.

"As a rapidly growing, multi-channel cosmetic retailer andmanufacturer, we're adding new stores and continually refining oursales channels to ensure we maximize our resources and meet theevolving needs of our customers," said Charles Bracher, vice presidentof finance at MD Beauty, manufacturer of Bare Escentuals. "Byimplementing Business Objects Planning for Retail, we now are able toreceive valuable input from our retail sales channels, collaborateeffectively with our stores, and adjust our modeling and keyperformance indicators as necessary, ensuring that our budget isaccurate and insightful."

"Business Objects understands the specific challenges retailersface, which is why our retail strategy has been so successful -- rightnow 160 of the top global retailers rely on Business Objects toimprove performance," said Tom Malone, group vice president of theplanning business unit at Business Objects. "Today we're addingplanning and budgeting solutions that allow retailers to model 'whatif' scenarios to help them exceed their financial goals. Incombination with our existing retail analytics, Business Objects nowprovides a complete solution that enables better management andperformance across the retail organization -- from the CEO to financeexecutives down to store managers."

Business Objects Planning for Retail consists of four newapplications for more precise budgeting, forecasting, plan reporting,and payroll planning. This solution enables retailers to conductcomparable store forecasting, sales calendarization, operationalexpense management, and multi-channel sales management. Unlike otherperformance management solutions available, Business Objects Planningfor Retail allows individual business units to develop and refinefinancial models based on their unique drivers and processes.

Breaking Down Barriers and Increasing Collaboration

Collaboration between the finance department and other parts ofthe company is critically important to retailers' ability to quicklyrespond to changing conditions. But in a typical retail organization,finance executives and managers from different departments makedecisions in isolation and without a holistic view of all financialmetrics. With Business Objects Planning for Retail, information frommultiple layers of the retail organization -- such as regionalmanagement, various sales channels, operations, and finance -- can beshared across locations and lines of business. With the ability tocollaborate across the organization, the finance department canincorporate operational and qualitative data into the budget, and movethe planning focus from data auditing and consolidation to predictiveanalytics.

Business Objects Servers Retailers

Business Objects has a long history as the leading provider ofinnovative solutions, applications, and services that address theparticular needs of retailers. For instance, Business Objects providespre-configured analytic solutions that enable retailers to identifythe optimal store assortment, accurately profile their customers, andbetter manage vendor performance. Currently, Business Objects helpsoptimize and improve performance for eight of the top ten largestretailers worldwide including Wal-Mart.com, Tesco, Carrefour, andAuchan.

Pricing and Availability

Business Objects Planning for Retail is generally available now.For more information please visit the Business Objects website:www.businessobjects.com/planning.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI)software company. With more than 30,000, customers worldwide,including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helpsorganizations gain better insight into their business, improvedecision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company'sbusiness intelligence platform, BusinessObjects(TM) XI, offers the BIindustry's most advanced and complete platform for performancemanagement, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and dataintegration. BusinessObjects XI includes Crystal Reports(R), theindustry standard for enterprise reporting. Business Objects has alsobuilt the industry's strongest and most diverse partner community, andthe company offers consulting and education services to help customerseffectively deploy their business intelligence projects.

Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., andParis, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ)and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. Moreinformation about Business Objects can be found atwww.businessobjects.com.

Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, WebIntelligence,and Crystal Reports are trademarks or registered trademarks ofBusiness Objects S.A. or its affiliated companies in the United Statesand/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may betrademarks of their respective owners.