Liz Claiborne Selects Spotlight Markdown Optimizer

Liz Claiborne Inc will use Spotlight Solutions Inc's Markdown Optimizer, to suggest appropriate markdown opportunities more effectively.

Liz Claiborne Inc, based in New York, NY designs and markets an extensive range of women's and men's fashion apparel and accessories.

The Spotlight Markdown Optimizer applies mathematical algorithms to sales, inventory and other operating data to optimize, manage and suggest markdowns. The Markdown Optimizer determines the optimal timing, depth, and location of markdowns enabling dramatic increases in gross margins.

Liz Claiborne will use the Spotlight Rapid Results program to quickly implement the Markdown Optimizer and generate optimized markdowns in selected business lines beginning in the Spring 2001 season.

Spotlight's Rapid Results program for markdown optimization reduces implementation time and costs, and accelerates financial and merchandising benefits by deploying best practices via an application service provider (ASP) delivery model. All infrastructure, platforms, application software and services are pre-configured and tuned to reduce the time-to-benefit.

Spotlight Simplifies Complex Business Processes

Jim Kelly Jr., president and CEO of Spotlight Solutions, formed the company in 1999 along with several other industry veterans to provide a new breed of optimization software to analyze, optimize, automate and manage knowledge-intensive retail business processes automatically for the business user, providing dramatic financial returns.

"Retail executives that we work with tell us they are constantly challenged to respond to changing trends in consumer demand, deal with competitive pressures, and manage vast assortments of items," said Kelly. "They need tools that are smart enough and powerful enough to solve these problems, they need them integrated with their broader business processes, and they need to get these capabilities up and running quickly."

Kelly added that the need to better manage the markdown process has never been more important to a retailer's profitability. He stated that markdowns as a percent of total retail sales have grown from 8 percent in 1971 to more than 33 percent in some segments today.

Industry Analysts Support Innovative Approach to Improving the Bottom Line

According to an article by John Hutchins published in the AMR Research Alert on Retail Applications, May 5, 2000: "Two of the most effective ways to immediately drive financial performance are through pricing optimization and markdown control. Applying mathematical algorithms to key data points like sales, inventory, and other operational data, the Spotlight Markdown Optimizer helps squeeze more profit out of markdowns."

Henry Morris, Ph.D., research vice president of data warehousing and applications, IDC, an information technology market research and analysis firm, said analytic software applications are moving beyond performance measurement and reporting to predictive modeling that optimizes a specific business activity. "It really makes sense to select a specific operational action point such as a price change that the business can act on and develop analytics targeted to optimize that action point," Morris said.

About Liz Claiborne

Liz Claiborne Inc designs and markets an extensive range of women's and men's fashion apparel and accessories appropriate to wearing occasions ranging from casual to dressy. The Company also markets fragrances for women and men. Liz Claiborne Inc's brands include Claiborne, Crazy Horse, Curve, Dana Buchman, Elisabeth, Emma James, First Issue, Laundry by Shelli Segal, Liz Claiborne, Lucky Brand, Monet, Niki Taylor, Russ, Sigrid Olsen and Villager. In addition, Liz Claiborne Inc holds the exclusive, long-term license to produce and sell men's and women's collections of DKNY Jeans and DKNY Active, as well as CITY DKNY better women's sportswear in the Western Hemisphere. The Company also has the exclusive license to produce women's wear under the Kenneth Cole New York, Unlisted.com and Reaction Kenneth Cole brand names.

About Spotlight

Spotlight helps retail and e-commerce companies and their suppliers more effectively price, promote, markdown, source, and allocate merchandise. Spotlight's software solutions apply mathematical algorithms to sales, inventory, and other operating data to recommend specific courses of action. Spotlight's new approach optimizes, automates, and manages complex decision processes enabling merchants to dramatically increase gross margins by squeezing more revenue out of existing merchandise. Spotlight customers include retail leaders like ShopKo, Liz Claiborne, Meijer, and Ames. For more information on Spotlight Solutions, visit www.spotlightsolutions.com or call 513-339-0777.

Contact Spotlight Solutions, Steve Shaw, 513-339-0777, sshaw@spotlightsolutions.com.