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Hydro-Quebec Saves Millions of Dollars with Sand's Nucleus

Sand Technology announced that a Nucleus data mart it built for Hydro-Quebec's Purchasing Services department is saving the company millions of dollars in discounts on the $1.5 billion of goods and services it buys each year. A world leader in green energy production, Hydro-Quebec, www.hydro.qc.ca, serves more than 3.5 million subscribers and has more than 31,400 megawatts of installed capacity.

According to Leo Paul Jemus, Chief, Information Services, Purchasing Services, a year after Hydro-Quebec implemented SAP R/3, it was still unable to get the required business data from the systems. As a result, many managers were placing orders directly with suppliers and couldn't take advantage of the 20% discount that Purchasing negotiates. "With Nucleus, we can now show 2,000 managers exactly how much they are buying, how much their employees are buying, and from whom," Jemus reported.

"In 2000, although Nucleus was only implemented for the second half of the year, purchases that did not involve the purchasing department dropped by 25% compared to 1999 (from 12% to 9%). On a purchasing budget of approximately 1.5 billion, this represents potential savings exceeding $4 million," Jemus explained. "In the first five months of 2001, the proportion of purchases that did not involve the purchasing department dropped even lower to 8.5%. Availability of information, as well as briefings and presentations to managers by our Purchasing Services team, made the difference."

In less than two months, Sand created a SAP R/3 data mart (Nucleus Active Mart) which gives Hydro-Quebec users flexible, multidimensional access to detailed (non-aggregated) data. Instead of having to rely on busy ABAP programmers to create custom queries for the SAP database, users can now formulate their own and get answers quickly -- in seconds for simple queries and in minutes for complex queries.

Users access the Nucleus Data Mart with their Internet browser through a secure portal. They can see the status of their purchase along the entire process: from order to delivery.

About Sand Technology

Sand Technology provides Information Integration solutions that help leading organizations worldwide cope with data overload. Its Nucleus Analytical Suite of solutions is used for data mining, data marts, data warehousing, and CRM Analytics.

Sand Technology is much more than just a software company. True, we offer a unique, innovative data management technology, with a level of analytical functionality that qualifies it as part of the "next generation" of computing software. However, we know that software is only one of the components that a business needs to realize value from corporate initiatives.

Therefore, we have structured Sand Technology as a new kind of software solution provider, with a philosophy that is strongly focused on the delivery of business-driven solutions and a corporate culture centered on integrity and customer service. This is embodied in the Sand Guarantee, which links our commercial rewards to the delivery of real business benefits to our customers.

We help leading organizations across Europe and North America cope with "data overload," by giving them rapid access to the exact information they need to make the right business decisions. Our solutions are extremely powerful and highly scalable; they empower legacy systems and data access tools; they leverage existing IT investment, require no additional human resources, and deliver business value quickly, resulting in a rapid return on investment (ROI).

Organizations across Europe and North America use Sand's solutions for both analytical and operational purposes, including among others, CRM and CRM analytics, Web analytics, healthcare analytics, supply chain management, inventory & production optimization, financial analysis, and strategic planning.

Sand Technology is headquartered in Montreal, with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Central Europe. Sand Technology has commercial relationships with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, KPMG, Ab Initio, Brio Technology, Business Objects, Information Builders, Acta, Soza, Sema/Schlumberger, Equifax and BTG. For more information, visit www.sand.com.

Contact North America -- Hellena Smejda of WordsWorth International, 815-736-9902, hsmejda@theramp.net.