Gates Europe Selects Sterling Commerce to Enhance Customer Experience

COLUMBUS, OH--(Marketwire - January 26, 2009) - Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, today announced that Gates Europe, a worldwide manufacturer of premium automotive and industrial products, has implemented Sterling Catalog and Offer Management, part of Sterling Multi-Channel Selling. The Sterling solution has delivered a simplified and streamlined purchasing experience for customers of Gates Europe, while supporting the company's geographical expansion activities and reducing order management costs.

Sterling Catalog and Offer Management extends the Gates Europe e-catalog and e-commerce offerings and capabilities to all its 1,000-plus distributors by providing tailored access to an online portal that connects its external product catalog to the internal order management systems. This portal has increased the volume of electronic business transactions dramatically, with 22 percent more products being sold annually through the website.

"More and more of our distributor partners were demanding an integrated tool to simplify their purchasing experience, and Sterling Multi-Channel Selling was the ideal solution to meet these distributors' expectations and help us keep ahead of our competitors," said Patricia Vauzelle, market services manager for Industrial at Gates Europe. "Our distributors now find the entire searching, ordering and purchasing process simple and efficient, and this has resulted in a rise in the levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty."

Gates Europe has witnessed a number of real business benefits since the implementation of Sterling Multi-Channel Selling, including:

--  Increase in volume of electronic business transactions
--  Reduction in product 'time to market' as distributors can now view new
    products online without having to wait for the new printed catalog
--  Reduction in costs associated with manual entries (for both Gates
    Europe and its customers)
--  Redeployment of dedicated customer-service staff as round-the-clock
    access to the website allows distributors to enter and check orders at any
    time without third-party involvement
--  Redeployment of staff, who would have been responding to phone calls
    from distributors, to channel their efforts into augmenting sales
    activities and adding value to the existing customer base.
    

"To remain competitive in today's economic climate, more and more manufacturing companies must understand that e-commerce is a vital element of the selling strategy and that the website is the prime tool for streamlining the customer experience, both pre- and post-sale," said Richard Douglass, Global Manufacturing Industry Executive, Sterling Commerce. "Externally, the Sterling Multi-Channel Selling web portal has provided the customers of Gates Europe with more control and visibility with their individual purchasing activity, while internally, the multi-geography and multi-language capabilities of the solution has aided and eased the company's global expansion into new territories."

Gates' new universal, multi-language online catalog, containing all 50,000 products, is accessed through individual client portals and enables distributors to instantly search for their desired products; to get a customized price for each product; to check availability; to access any reviews or technical information; and to order all products, then to follow-up and check order status, all online.

More information on Sterling Multi-Channel Selling is available at: http://www.sterlingcommerce.com/Products/Selling/

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, and supply chain fulfillment, and payments management to optimize business performance inside and outside their enterprise. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 24 countries around the world. More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com