Version 6.0 Supports Remote Approval Via Mobile Devices; Enables Manufacturers to Automate Analysis and Make Better Decisions with Less Effort

Boston, MA -- Blacksmith Applications, the leader in trade spend and pricing software solutions for the foodservice industry, announced today the availability of version 6.0 of FORGE Trade and FORGE Settlements software, as the company continues to focus on software that facilitates visibility and decision-making down to the lowest levels of the organization, while maintaining accountability by restricting access and approval to predefined thresholds.

Version 6.0 enables customers to approve pricing, rebates and promotions via mobile devices including Blackberry and iPhone. This enables sales, marketing and finance to approve deals from their mobile device while on the road, without logging into the application, reducing the time required to approve deals and facilitating greater customer responsiveness. Other features automate key processes and analysis - such as freight-based pricing, volume forecasting, auto-payment of distributor programs and deduction matching - that enable manufacturers to make better decisions with less effort.  

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Boston, MA -- With the release of FORGE Settlements 5.0, Blacksmith Applications is helping foodservice manufacturers manage promotion reimbursements with a fully integrated transaction process that dramatically reduces labor and enables a streamlined method for recapturing unearned trade dollars. The streamlined claim settlement process represents a 'Best In Class' approach within the industry relative to cycle time and automation. 

Deepa Kunnath, one of the primary architects of the functionality, has been leading the effort at Blacksmith to deliver the 'dream process solution'. "All of the manufacturers in the foodservice industry are striving to eliminate process steps, shorten cycle times and insure their funding levels are consistent with the operator deviated pricing agreements they have in the market. With FORGE 5.0, we are able to import claims at the item-level, validate them against the parameters of the contracts, auto match against open deductions, process the request for a check or credit and store the deviations for future recollection. Importantly, our customers are able to execute this on a daily basis with very little manual intervention. The value for our customers is tremendous - this insures that the reimbursement for deviated pricing is correct and also provides a facility for effectively recapturing direct trade and sheltered income funds against national account and bid volumes. It really is a huge win from a financial perspective that is very difficult to realize with ordinary tools."  

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Boston, MA -- With the release of FORGE Trade 5.0, Blacksmith Applications customers can capitalize on a range of new features designed to sharpen the accuracy of their pricing actions while accounting for freight-related cost fluctuations in the supply chain.

According to Milan Mushran, the development leader for the new package, the value for Blacksmith's customers is both substantial and immediate. "Our customers are under tremendous pressure to insure both the inbound and outbound freight rates are accurate and taken into consideration when pricing to their accounts. With FORGE 5.0, the pricing actions they take each day consider the current fuel and freight conditions for their supply chain and 'build up' the final FOB and delivered prices for each delivery point from the forward distribution center. Prior to these tools, most of our clients were left to load Excel sheets and calculate the pricing manually, which was prone to error, difficult to execute on time and very labor intensive. Given the volatile nature of freight costs, these features deliver a great deal of value for them."   

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Lawrence, MA – Blacksmith Applications, Inc., the leading provider of contract, trade, and deduction management solutions for the foodservice and consumer goods industries, announced today the release of VANTAGE ANALYTICS, a web-based sales, trade, and financial reporting and analysis tool for manufacturers. With manufacturers significantly shifting their focus towards more strategic and efficient trade spending, the requirement for more accurate and timely data, in-depth analysis, and the ability to leverage that data is at an all-time high. Blacksmith, with the release of VANTAGE ANALYTICS, is meeting those needs head-on by providing actionable business intelligence for making key business decisions to maximize ROIs.

"Manufacturers are spending more money on trade every day - through a myriad of programs - with little or no visibility into the effectiveness of that spending. The decisions on where, when, and how to spend those monies continue to be a challenge for their sales, marketing, and finance departments," said Karen Ehrlich, Senior Product Manager, Blacksmith Applications. "VANTAGE ANALYTICS will provide manufacturers with valuable data and insight to better track, understand, and manage their business to improve enterprise performance and profitability across all business units. The knowledge gained will lower the risk of lost volume and revenue and give manufacturers the competitive edge they seek in the marketplace."  

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Lawrence, MA – Blacksmith Applications, Inc., the leading provider of contract, trade, and deduction management solutions for the foodservice and consumer goods industry, announced today the release of GAUGE, its powerful new offline sales reporting application for foodservice sales professionals. Challenged with an increasingly complex business environment, foodservice sales professionals have traditionally struggled to balance their life 'on the road' with the demands of analyzing reports and digesting market trends. With the introduction of GAUGE, Blacksmith Applications is delivering the power of a robust sales analysis and reporting platform in a mobile and highly responsive tool.

"With more than 3,000 current sales managers and brokers using our enterprise software solutions, we have been able to identify, develop, and deliver against the core requirements for these folks relative to reporting and analysis", said Karen Ehrlich, Senior Product Manager for the Blacksmith initiative. "What is most critical to these folks is being able to do their work anywhere at any time - without having to find a wireless hot spot or deal with cumbersome hotel network connections. With GAUGE, we not only provide a powerful tool that enables market, customer, and broker specific analysis, but we deliver it with an offline and highly-responsive tool. The feedback we received from the marketplace indicates that the existing ordinary tools that have been available are just too slow. To address that gap, we took extra steps to make sure that the tool is as responsive as other desktop applications, such as Excel."

GAUGE replaces the paper and e-mailed reports that many companies use for sales reporting today. IT departments have few resources available to customize reports based on sales reps' needs, and with GAUGE, users can run their own queries against the 'data cubes' they have downloaded. GAUGE, which has been in market test for the past six months, is now available in full commercial release. Blacksmith executives promise that GAUGE is only the first in a series of analytical and decision-enabling solutions specifically focused on the needs of the foodservice sales professional.  

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Wilmington, MA - Blacksmith Applications, the leading provider of contract, trade, and deduction management solutions for the foodservice industry, announced today that it has expanded its solution portfolio to assist foodservice manufacturers in managing the ever-growing problem of deductions with the release of its web-based deduction management solution, SHIELD.

"There is no doubt that deductions have become a huge issue in the foodservice industry over the last 10 years, with distributors becoming more aggressive on what they deduct, how often they deduct, and how quickly they do it. For the manufacturer, this often creates an accounting nightmare, and the associated headaches that come with managing these deductions can filter all the way down from customer service to field sales, where valuable sales time is overrun with tedious, labor-intensive activities spent on deduction research and follow-up," said Paul Wietecha, President, Blacksmith Applications. Along with those headaches comes the ongoing pain of losing significant revenue on a daily basis because manufacturers often lack the processes, systems, or controls to identify, research, and resolve deductions in a timely fashion, if at all. Our customers need solutions that can stop the bleeding right now, and we’re ready to do just that with SHIELD.

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