Walker Interactive Provides Pep Boys with Budgeting System

Pep Boys, a leading full-service automotive aftermarket retail and service chain, has successfully implemented the Walker Planning & Forecasting solution to significantly improve their budget process. To date, Pep Boys has reduced the time spent by their organization on budget preparation, distribution and collection by 40 percent, completing their second yearly budget cycle in record time.

"By reducing the preparation, distribution and collection of the budget cycle by 40 percent, Pep Boys benefits from significant time and cost savings. The finance department has significantly reduced its efforts in generating the budget data, which in turn, provides the opportunity for value added analysis activities," said Robert Sheppard, manager of budgeting and analysis for Pep Boys.

Pep Boys evaluated a number of competitive offerings before choosing Walker. As Sheppard explained, "We looked at three different solutions when we were choosing a budgeting package; Walker, another packaged solution and a customized solution. We chose Walker because they had the built-in workflow capabilities that fully addressed Pep Boys' current problems with our existing budgeting system."

"During every budgeting cycle, companies such as Pep Boys continually confront the challenge of how to consolidate and integrate dissimilar budget information from multiple sources and cost centers. Walker's Horizon PCA gives companies the opportunity to significantly reduce the time expended and the skills wasted on organizing this barrage of data. Pep Boys is also the first Walker customer to implement Horizon PCA with IBM DB2 OLAP Server on the pSeries platform, which is a great testament to the flexibility of the technical architecture of Horizon," said George Hadgraft, Walker's director of product management.

About Pep Boys

Pep Boys has 629 stores and over 6,500 service bays in 36 states and Puerto Rico. Along with its vehicle repair and maintenance capabilities, the company also serves the commercial auto parts delivery market and is one of the leading sellers of replacement tires in the United States. Customers can find the nearest location by calling 800-PEP-BOYS or by visiting www.pepboys.com.

About Walker

Walker Interactive Systems Inc, headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a leading, global provider of e-business solutions for the enterprise. The Walker family of e-business applications and vertical industry solutions, combined with integration and consulting services, is utilized by Global 2000 organizations in industries including banking and financial services, retail, transportation and utilities. Information about Walker is available at www.walker.com or 800-PICK-WALKER.

Contact Erin Kirk of Walker Interactive Systems Inc, 415-243-2865, orekirk@walker.com.