Ahold USA Selects Capgemini and Enabler Wipro for Retail Business Transformation Initiative

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Enabler Wipro, a leading international IT and business services company, today announced a multi-year consulting and systems integration project with Ahold, one of the world’s leading grocery retailers. Capgemini and Enabler Wipro will drive Ahold USA’s deployment of Oracle Retail applications, and implement strategies designed to differentiate Ahold brands within the U.S. market.

Capgemini and Enabler Wipro will support Ahold USA’s strategic initiatives across a broad range of areas including merchandising, supply chain, store operations, planning and analysis. The Oracle Retail enterprise-wide system will replace a mix of packaged and custom applications. Capgemini and Enabler Wipro will jointly provide consulting and integration services for one of the largest global retail industry transformation initiatives on an Oracle platform.

“Getting consistent information and pricing from our separate applications today is time-consuming and challenging,” said Dave McNally, Ahold’s global chief information officer. “The implementation of Oracle Retail will create the foundation for our future retail systems. Additional capabilities will be layered on to this foundation to further differentiate us in the marketplace. With its strength in business transformation, Capgemini knows our industry and our company, helping us drive the transformation necessary to deliver the right products at the right time to our customers, while Enabler Wipro holds an excellent track record with high profile large scale Oracle Retail implementations and expertise in this area.”

This latest initiative builds on a successful long-term relationship between Capgemini and Ahold in Europe, where Capgemini helped Albert Heijn, the Dutch operating unit of Ahold, streamline product data management in a key step towards global data synchronization. Additionally, Capgemini and Ahold have also collaborated in a number of cross-industry task forces and associations, including the Global Commerce Initiative, and ECR Europe.

“This is a landmark win for Capgemini in North America and further demonstrates our commitment to driving deep sector knowledge in the market through a combination of process consulting and technology knowledge,” said Lanny Cohen, chief executive officer for Capgemini’s Consulting and Technology Services business in North America. “Capgemini’s global experience with retail transformation will help Ahold USA achieve improvements in their cost structure by integrating four of our retail practice offerings: Store Operations, Finance Transformation, Retail Merchandising and Supply Chain, plus our knowledge of Oracle Retail, to help deliver consistent results for company-wide data.”

“The key to the success of this initiative was the collaboration between Capgemini and Enabler Wipro,” said Klaus Sentker, director of Enabler Wipro. “Ahold recognized the approach as one where individual strengths and experience were combined to provide the winning combination of capability and experience to transform its business.”

About Ahold USA

Ahold USA operates the Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., headquartered in Quincy, Mass.; Giant Food, LLC, based in Landover, Md.; Tops Markets, LLC, with headquarters in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Giant Food Stores, LLC, based in Carlisle, Pa. Jointly they operate over 800 stores.

About Capgemini

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, enables its clients to transform and perform through technologies. Capgemini provides its clients with insights and capabilities that boost their freedom to achieve superior results through a unique way of working – the Collaborative Business Experience – and through a global delivery model called Rightshore® , which aims to offer the right resources in the right location at competitive cost. Present in 36 countries, Capgemini reported 2007 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion (approximately US$12 billion) and employs over 83,000 people worldwide.

More information is available at www.us.capgemini.com.

About Enabler Wipro

Enabler Wipro is an international IT and business services company that delivers measurable value to the world’s best-known retailers. The company works with retailers on their business and IT transformation programs to achieve competitive advantage. In 2006, Enabler became a part of Wipro Technologies, a division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) and is one of the largest product engineering and support service providers worldwide. Wipro provides comprehensive research and development services, IT solutions and services, including systems integration, Information Systems outsourcing, package implementation, software application development and maintenance services to corporations globally. More information is available at www.wipro.com and www.enabler.com
Contacts

Capgemini
Lisa Boughner, +1-702-476-6152
External Communications
Lisa.boughner {at} capgemini(.)com
or
Ahold
Caro Bamforth, +31 (0)20 509 5291
Communications
Caro.bamforth {at} ahold(.)com
or
Public Relations
Fieldworks
Emma Easterbrook, + 44 (0) 1435 873080
Emma {at} fieldworksmarketing.co(.)uk