Quote Solution Now Connects to a Community of 1500+ Suppliers With Access to More Than 15 Million Part Numbers and Over $10 Billion in Available Inventory

Pasadena, CA – November 5, 2001 – eConnections, Inc., the leading provider of extended supply chain intelligence solutions for the electronics industry, announced today that the eConnections Quote Manager, "Quotility," now offers connections to more than 1,500 suppliers. Quote Manager is recognized as the authorized quote solution for the electronics industry. Year-to-date, it has processed more than $3.5 billion in quotes, providing access to more than 15 million part numbers and over $10 billion in available inventory.

First introduced as Quotility in January 2001, Quote Manager is a comprehensive quote management solution that provides up to a 50 percent reduction in quote cycle time. It is part of the eConnnections Suite of hosted, extended supply chain intelligence services specifically designed for collaborative management of the electronics industry's global marketplace (see press release on the eConnections Suite also dated November 5, 2001).

"The comprehensive functionality of Quote Manager – coupled with our commitment to serve as an independent service provider – has led to widespread acceptance that is unprecedented in the electronics industry," said Rob Rodin, president and CEO of eConnections. "This acceptance is backed by proven performance in processing more than $3.5 billion in quotes and with many customers reporting fast, demonstrable returns on their investments."

Customers Realize ROI With Quote Manager
"eConnections' Quote Manager provides us with an effective quote management solution that has been fully embraced by the electronics community," said Kevin Melendy, vice president of sales for Spectral Response, Inc., an electronic manufacturing services company. "With Quote Manager we can process quotes and bids faster than ever, eliminating time spent on redundant data entry. And eConnections' exceptional customer support has been a great asset in helping us implement in days, resulting in immediate ROI."

"Having connections to the community is very important to us. You can buy a solution with front-end functionality for gaining efficiencies internally, but if you don't have the back-end connections, it doesn't help you in the long term," said Curtis Campbell, vice president of sales for Flash Electronics, a contract electronics manufacturing firm. "Through the community connections and embedded intelligence of Quote Manager, we've been able to realize a 35-50 percent reduction in our quote cycle time and a 50-65 percent reduction in quote processing costs – and we're getting the data we need to make better decisions."

Key Quote Manager Features
The eConnections Quote Manager is a hosted, comprehensive quote management solution, which includes two major components: RFQ management and supplier management. Using Quote Manager, supply chain partners can leverage the Web to collaborate more effectively throughout the quote process. The system automatically distributes requests for quotes (RFQs) based on a customer's rules for preferred vendors, and provides for explicit authorization from both the customer and supplier. As a hosted service, the eConnections Quote Manager can be implemented in as little as 24 hours and offers immediate ROI. eConnections neither disintermediates existing relationships nor participates in any transactions.

RFQ management addresses several aspects of the quote management process, including standardized RFQs; one-click RFQ distribution; competitive evaluation of quote criteria for fast, informed purchasing decisions; and intelligent, multi-level BOM processing.

Supplier management enables supply chain partners to optimize their relationships and automate quote workflow. Key features include the ability for customers to designate preferred suppliers, configurable alerts to help workflow, analytics for creating supplier performance scorecards, and summarization of award value to facilitate purchase decisions.

About eConnections
eConnections is the leading provider of extended supply chain intelligence solutions specifically designed for collaboration to manage the electronics industry's global marketplace. eConnections offers hosted supply chain services that combine embedded domain expertise with authorized connections to a community of more than 1500 of the world's leading suppliers, distributors, and manufacturers' representatives. eConnections provides electronics companies with trusted, net-native solutions that streamline the complexity of the supply chains in which they operate and enable them to get the right product to the right place, at the right time, in the most efficient way possible. eConnections, a privately held company, is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif. For more information, please visit www.eConnections.com.