LOS GATOS, Calif. and ORLANDO, Fla., May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueDemand Software, a leader in consumer-demand driven network solutions, today announces a free service to drive adoption of RFID technology in the retail supply chain. Starting today, TrueDemand will make portions of its forecasting and replenishment software available free to qualified companies over the Internet as a hosted service. This free offering will enable consumer goods companies shipping RFID-tagged items to retailers to quickly identify the root causes for failures in store and shelf replenishment, promotions and new product introductions. This service, based on TrueDemand's award-winning forecasting and replenishment solutions, will enable consumer goods companies to identify and exploit areas for improvement in their supply chain and accelerate their time to value with their RFID initiatives.

TrueDemand's free service will provide trend analysis on RFID read rates, supply chain analytics including transit times, inventory levels, lost sales due to supply chain failures, and root causes for out-of-stock by SKU, store and day. As a result, consumer goods companies will develop a better understanding of the value generated by including point-of-sale, RFID and other retailer-shared information in the decision making process. TrueDemand will also have a premium service available that will help suppliers run their day-to-day business with many of the world's leading retailers.

"RFID has been stuck in pilot mode. Very few companies have even evaluated the ROI for RFID technology," said Eric Peters, CEO of TrueDemand. "In an effort to drive adoption we have decided to make basic parts of our solution free to Wal-Mart suppliers. Companies are already making significant capital investments in the technology. Why should they have to pay more to uncover the value? As a founding sponsor of EPCGlobal, we thought this could be our way of helping to jumpstart the industry and drive value."

Some of the leading adopters of RFID technology have already utilized TrueDemand's RFID analysis service over the past few months. Working closely on projects with several of the world's largest consumer goods companies, TrueDemand's research determined that true out-of-stock issues occur nearly twice as often as reported by retailers. The research also indicated that the root causes for out-of-stock errors change significantly over the course of a year, that nearly 10% of the lifecycle revenue for a product can be lost just during a product transition, and that a significant number of lost sales can be easily prevented by the consumer goods companies.

TrueDemand's solution provides real-time out-of-stock and profitability impact analyses to help suppliers prioritize which SKUs, categories, processes and specific problems to focus on with their retail partners in order to maximize the value of their RFID investment. The solution will automatically identify out-of-stock root causes by SKU and product category all the way from the retail distribution center to the retail shelf. The result is a true "shelf back" supply chain that generates actionable tasks to optimize inventory levels and improve sales at every step across the supply chain. TrueDemand's application is available to customers as either a web-based on- demand hosted service or as a licensed software application.

"Consumer goods companies are investing in becoming more consumer-driven by empowering dedicated retail account teams," said Peters. "TrueDemand helps by providing those account teams with solutions and tools to be effective. When analyzed and used correctly, RFID data can help consumer goods companies improve and add certainty to the decision making process. Under this free analysis program, we believe our customers will be able to use the information we provide to get measurable benefits from their RFID investments."

About TrueDemand (http://www.tdemand.com/)

TrueDemand solutions take a single view of the supply chain from the retail shelf back to the manufacturer's distribution center and integrate that view with the sales and customer replenishment capabilities of an organization to drive sales growth. TrueDemand's solutions are the first of their kind built from the ground up to take advantage of the new demand and visibility signals and make that information actionable. By integrated planning and execution technologies together with predictive science, customers can not only better anticipate potential problems in the supply chain, but they can proactively and automatically remedy supply chain problems before they occur. TrueDemand customers include some of the world's leading manufacturers. TrueDemand has offices in Los Gatos, California, Atlanta, Georgia and Pune, India. Visit http://www.tdemand.com/ for more information.

CONTACT: Dan Gaffney of Lois Paul & Partners, +1-781-782-5817,
gaffney@lpp.com for TrueDemand Software

Web site: http://www.tdemand.com/