Oco’s Chief Technology Officer to Discuss New Era of Diagonal Business Intelligence at ComputerWorld SaaScon Conference

Mike Beckerle to Show How Customer, Welch’s, Gained Visibility into Ways to Save Costs in Supply Chain

WALTHAM, Mass.— March 25, 2008  - Oco, Inc., a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider of business intelligence (BI) and data integration solutions, announced today that its Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mike Beckerle, will lead a presentation at the annual Computerworld SaaScon conference, taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center, March 25-26, 2008.  Beckerle will discuss the era of “Diagonal BI,” which integrates the value and efficiency of Software-as-a-Service, featuring leading consumer packaged good manufacturer, Welch’s.  His presentation will take place March 25, 2008 at 11:20 a.m. PDT.

In addition, Oco will be exhibiting its advanced business intelligence solutions in Booth #309, including its new suite of business intelligence solutions designed to meet the specific needs of mid-sized companies in the industrial products and consumer packaged goods manufacturing industries; its advanced BI solution for the retail marketplace; and the company’s newly created open architecture platform that enables third-party integration. 

During his session, Mike Beckerle will discuss the new role of “Diagonal BI,” which is fast becoming the third method of business intelligence delivery. In contrast to horizontal solutions that cross all industries and vertical ones that are very tailored for one specific industry, diagonal solutions address business-specific functions that are relevant to a few, but not all industries. He will explain how SaaS is an enabler of business intelligence and how its economics enable diagonal BI solutions to work, and because of this, why the industry can expect more Diagonal BI applications through SaaS-based market entrants.

To demonstrate the value of Diagonal BI, Mike will showcase Welch’s, a leading provider of juice, jam and fruit products, which was able to gain rapid insight to realize substantial transportation savings. He will explain how Oco’s solution allows it to have better visibility into details about invoices, shipments, orders, and associated costs.  Welch’s selected Oco because it wanted a proven, yet affordable solution that could be deployed within weeks, as well as a solution that could extract and report on data in an integrated manner from three existing systems – freight payment, legacy order management system, and the ERP order management module.

Mike will show how the Oco’s SaaS-based solution allows the Welch’s team to identify opportunities for cost savings. With Oco’s management-level dashboard view, the team gets a detailed view on costs including line haul and accessorial charges. This information helps the Welch’s team optimize its operations by making the best decisions regarding shipments and carriers.  Through the case study, Mike will outline how Welch’s was able to “recover its investment in the Oco solution in just 30 days,” according to Welch’s Director of Purchasing and Logistics, Bill Coyne.

About SaaScon
Computerworld’s SaaScon™ 2008, the premier event for business services technologies, brings IT executives from around the country together to discuss the future of Software-as-a-Service technology. The conference will focus on how the top companies in the U.S. are effectively moving mission-critical applications to the services model The SaaScon 2008 agenda will showcase end-user presentations of actual SaaS implementations from well-known thought leaders and industry executives.

About Oco, Inc.
Oco’s business intelligence solutions provide essential business visibility, delivering an integrated set of actionable reports and key performance indicators (KPIs) from multiple data sources to any user in just weeks. Oco’s comprehensive solutions dramatically reduce the timeframe, cost and risk of traditional business intelligence implementations with deployment on a fixed-cost, fixed-time basis and a money-back guarantee.  For more information about Oco, please visit www.oco-inc.com.

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