NEWPORT BEACH, CA -- 12/13/07 --
Birch Street Systems, a
leading provider of customizable e-procurement and back office automation
solutions, today announced that it has capped off a solid year of new
business growth with more than a half dozen marquee hospitality accounts
joining the "Birch Street Family."
Over the past twelve months, a host of corporations have selected Birch
Street Systems as their partner-of-choice in helping them to streamline
their back office applications. The company's e-Procurement system, a suite
of web-based applications delivered using a Software as a Service (SaaS)
model, is designed to help an enterprise leverage its buying power,
automate back-office processes and tighten financial controls.
According to Mark Koenig, vice president of research-based marketing
strategy consulting firm Saugatuck Technology, "Birch Street recognized
early that SaaS makes it possible to build industry-specific solutions for
previously underserved customers. SaaS-based back-office support in the
hospitality industry appears to be a very ripe opportunity -- especially
for large and complex international operations."
Most recently, Omni Hotels, which operates 39 first-class and luxury
hotels and resorts throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico,
selected Birch Street Systems to host its online e-Procurement System.
Utilizing Birch Street's solution, Omni Hotels will now be better equipped
to automate and track procurement procedures as well access activities
across its properties on a global scale.
In July of this year, Birch Street Systems was selected by the Global Hyatt
Corporation as the de facto standard for e-Procurement and back office
systems solutions. As part of the agreement, Hyatt will utilize Birch
Street's Application Suite to streamline purchasing, inventory and food
cost management across all Hyatt locations worldwide.
"We are honored to be working with such a fine array of top companies
within the hospitality and food service arenas," said Doug Sanborn, Birch
Street's president and CEO. "With each of our customers, our goal remains
the same: to provide an optimized, high value solution through the use of
our innovative e-procurement system. Birch Street Systems prides itself on
providing users with a seamless solution designed to enhance productivity
and positively impact the bottom line."
The InterContinental Chicago, one of the city's finest hotels, chose Birch
Street Systems for procurement and back office automation. Utilizing Birch
Street's Single Property Solution (SPS), the luxury hotel now has the
ability to automate and leverage its 30,000 integrated industry suppliers.
The year began for Birch Street Systems with the expansion of an agreement
already in place with luxury property Beverly Hilton. Under the terms of
the agreement, the hotel now employs Birch Street's Inventory Control
module. With this latest module, the Beverly Hilton can now plan its
purchasing activities in a fraction of the time it would take with a
traditional paper-based process.
Late last year, Birch Street signed an agreement to provide its
e-Procurement solution to Hilton International. As part of that agreement,
a number of properties have been implemented including properties in France
and Egypt. Birch Street's implementation of the Sharm El Sheikh property
in Egypt marks the first e-Procurement system ever implemented at any hotel
in that country.
New Product Offerings Announced in 2007
During the year Birch Street announced the availability of several new
product offerings that included its new
Capital Projects Management suite for FF&E procurement related to hotel
development and renovation projects. Carlson Hospitality has signed an
agreement to license this product.
Birch Street also announced the availability of its new suite of AP
Processing modules and its Liquor Monitoring offering.
Expanding to New Markets in 2008
Not content to rest on the success it has garnered within the hospitality
industry, Birch Street Systems is looking to 2008 as the year of new and
diverse expansion into new industries that can seamlessly integrate the
company's web-based software in a flexible, easy-to-use manner.
"We believe that the true value of our web-based e-procurement system has
yet to be tapped," Sanborn noted. "There are many other industry segments
that, like the hospitality and food and beverage markets, require a wealth
of back-office logistics. The beauty of our solution is the ease with
which we can customize it to meet the needs of different locations, users,
customers or industries while still capturing the benefits of a hosted
solution."
Birch Street Systems plans to leverage its software technology solution
into a host of other enterprises including hospitals, universities and
other organizations that incorporate a number of different food and
beverage vendors and suppliers.
"Wherever there are a myriad of suppliers providing a variety of different
goods and services, our software provides a simple means to aggregate all
necessary information from purchasing discounts to preferred brands into a
centralized repository. This allows organizations to identify their
collective buying power, improve operational execution and lower costs --
effectively streamlining the entire back-office system," Sanborn added.
About Birch Street
Birch Street delivers its solution over the Internet, using the "Software
as a Service" (SaaS) model, which reduces the total cost of ownership
compared with the traditional method of buying and maintaining enterprise
software. Birch Street delivers its on demand eProcurement and back office
solutions to some of the world's leading hospitality companies, including
Hilton Hotels Corporation, Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels, Interstate
Hotels and Resorts and Carlson Hospitality. Multi-lingual and
multi-currency capable, over 1,000 locations use Birch Street's
full-featured, full-service procure-to-pay solutions in North America,
Central America, Europe and Asia. Birch Street's solutions represent the
"best of the web" capabilities to mid-tier and global hospitality and food
service companies. Birch Street allows customers to reduce the risk,
complexity and cost associated with large-scale regional or worldwide
procurement and
back-office solutions, while empowering business users and delivering
unprecedented ROI. The application suite includes e-procurement and RFQ;
budget tracking and workflow; recipe management, liquor monitoring and menu
engineering; inventory and receiving; AP automation; and FF&E/capital
projects management. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, the
company is managed by a team of enterprise software veterans. For more
information, visit www.BirchStreetSystems.com.
Birch Street Media Contact:
Bob Menzies
Lages & Associates
(949) 453 8080
Email Contact
