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Endeca Unveils Collaborative Approach for Multichannel Retail Innovation
Published: 1 May 2008

Endeca Technologies, Inc., an information access software company, announced a comprehensive series of investments and initiatives designed to transform multichannel retail through improved information visibility. Working closely with its more than 200 retail clients and strategic technology and channel partners, Endeca will bring to market new, first-of-their-kind retail capabilities, solutions and best practices offerings over the next 6 to 12 months. This collective focus on innovation will help retailers increase revenue, improve customer loyalty, create competitive advantages and deliver a consistent and differentiated customer experience across channels. In 2001, Endeca revolutionized the online retail market by inventing and commercializing the Guided Navigation experience, and introduced a new kind of technology that could offer integrated search, navigation and merchandising capabilities. Endeca’s offering was rapidly adopted by online and multichannel retail leaders and is now used by more of the top 100 online retailers than all competing solutions combined. The technology, based on purpose-built architecture to support these capabilities and resulting user experiences, remains the only one of its kind on the market and offers unparalleled flexibility for retailers to pursue differentiated strategies today, while supporting future expansion opportunities. Last year alone, Endeca-powered storefronts drove more than $20 billion in online revenue. “Recent economic conditions have accelerated efforts to finally tear down the artificial walls between the retail channels and create a personalized relationship with customers at every touch point,” said Steve Papa, CEO of Endeca. “The challenge now – and the biggest opportunity for competitive advantage – is creating visibility into inventory, merchandising, and customer information across these channels in ways that fuel innovation both online and throughout the multichannel retail enterprise.” Over the next few months Endeca will announce new ways today’s most innovative retailers are embracing the Endeca platform, as well as new product capabilities, a new generation of merchandising tools, new and improved integrations with retail and e-commerce ecosystem technologies, new customer experience capabilities, a variety of best practice offerings for multi-channel visibility, and more. Future innovation will focus on a series of information access solutions designed for in-store, call center and retail operations. All of these innovations will be based on unique software and solutions architectures designed to meet the needs of multichannel retail today, while providing the flexibility and extensibility to handle changing business requirements, evolving consumer preferences and industry trends critical in today’s hypercompetitive retailing environment. “We intend to transform retail again by delivering the information access technology, solutions and best practices to drive the next generation online shopping experience and create new offerings targeted for in-store and multichannel retail operations,” continued Papa. “We will help retailers tap into the wealth of information investments they've built up to attract customers, empower merchandisers and capitalize on tomorrow’s unpredictable opportunities. And these innovations will offer unparalleled flexibility to rapidly adapt retail solutions in ways that support unique, differentiated strategies for each and every Endeca enterprise."