Highway Technologies Deploys Host Analytics to Improve Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - October 28, 2009) - Highway Technologies, the largest provider of highway safety services and products in the US, has deployed a corporate performance management solution from Host Analytics to improve profits though better sales, inventory and operations planning (S&OP), Host Analytics announced today. In implementing Host Analytics, Highway Technologies has automated a series of tasks that previously were performed manually, including the process by which sales and operations staff share information and allocate equipment and personnel. As a result, Highway Technologies has been able to greatly reduce unnecessary expenditures and react more quickly and strategically to customers.

Based in Oak Brook, Illinois, Highway Technologies is a privately held company whose clients mainly are state departments of transportation, general contractors, and municipalities to whom Highway Technologies provides pavement marking equipment and services, traffic control devices, signage and other equipment along with highly trained and experienced traffic control personnel.

With more than 45 branches throughout the US, it's imperative that sales and operations managers have easy access to common data regarding equipment, staff availability, and demand across all locations. Prior to deploying Host Analytics, Highway Technologies lacked one centralized system for this information.

For example, a manager might purchase new road barricades because he or she didn't know the equipment might be available in another office. Or, management might maintain current staffing levels despite the fact that a sales slowdown has the company overstaffed according to currently scheduled orders. Either of these scenarios could potentially have cost Highway Technologies tens of thousands of dollars.

But with Host Analytics, over 100 managers and company executives including the CEO have real-time, web-based access to sales and inventory data, streamlining communications and significantly improving the equipment and personnel allocation and planning processes.

Highway Technologies selected Host Analytics after a comprehensive review of competitive systems, including Oracle Hyperion Planning. Host Analytics was chosen for several reasons. To begin with, the Host Analytics solution is delivered via the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which makes it significantly less expensive and easier to deploy than competitive on-premises software. Highway Technologies estimates that choosing SaaS over an on-premise solution saved the company the cost of one full-time employee, and mitigated the need to purchase new hardware to run the solution.

As important, however, is the speed with which the Host Analytics solution was deployed: the entire implementation took three weeks. According to Scott Rehner, vice president of IT for Highway Technologies: "In my experience, I don't think some of the competitors would have been able to get a server up-and-running in three weeks, let alone have the application implemented.

"We're finally all on the same page," said Rehner. "People are communicating and you really can't put a value on that. Instead of buying new equipment or hiring personnel, we're now sharing resources amongst our many locations enabling Highway Technologies to keep its costs down and most importantly to better serve our customers. And because the Host Analytics application resembles Microsoft Excel in terms of its look-and-feel, it's been very easy for our team to work with. Simply: the move to Host Analytics is something we should have done a long time ago, and now that we have it I can't imagine doing sales, inventory and operations planning without Host Analytics."

About Host Analytics

Founded in 2000, Host Analytics is the leading provider of cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) solutions to large and mid-market companies including JP Morgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, Otis Spunkmeyer, Pitney Bowes, and Red Roof Inns. Host Analytics' solutions help financial, line-of-business and departmental executives improve budgeting, forecasting, financial consolidations, dashboarding, scorecarding, reporting and analysis. Host Analytics delivers its suite of CPM solutions via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, enabling customers to realize fast time-to-value and a continuous flow of new features and functionality. For additional information, visit http://www.hostanalytics.com/.

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Contact Information: Media Contact: Kevin Wolf Host Analytics 650-327-1641