WPP, Deloitte Consulting and BroadVision launch Roundarch

9 May 2000

Three global e-business leaders WPP Group plc (Nasdaq:WPPGY), Deloitte Consulting and BroadVision, Inc. (Nasdaq:BVSN) today launched Roundarch, a new kind of e-business professional services firm. Fusing brand marketing, strategy and technology together in a totally new way, Roundarch helps organizations build business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-business capabilities, dramatically reducing the time and cost of executing winning customer and brand strategies. With more than $100 million in projected revenue and 20 clients, Roundarch's e-business solutions will help companies increase revenue, margins and customer loyalty.

'Roundarch is created around two big ideas,' states CEO Bo Manning. 'First, we brought together deeply experienced strategists, brand builders and systems integrators to create a truly inclusive approach. We're not technologists with a few brand people or a marketing firm with little technical know-how. Second, we sought out technology market leaders and pre-integrated them into end-to-end solutions, reducing the time and cost of technology development. Quite literally, Roundarch will change the way businesses are built.'

Roundarch's first service offering focuses on implementing personalized relationships across all customer channels, enabling customized interaction and transactions between customers, partners, suppliers and employees. Based upon BroadVision's technical platform, this offering integrates leaders in e-marketing, e-service, e-fulfillment, CRM and ERP to create a robust, pre-integrated, end-to-end solution.

'We chose Roundarch because we believe in their abilities to design a complete customer and brand experience across all of our channels, and then rapidly execute on this vision by integrating it into BroadVision, Siebel and SAP,' commented Russ Wilson, VP of Customer Relationship Management Reengineering at Pitney Bowes.

'Roundarch is the only firm that offers us deep customer, brand and technology insight,' stated Steve Berkowitz, CEO of YourDoctor.com. 'Roundarch is helping YourDoctor.com, build a branded, state of the art web navigational system that will deliver great value for all users of knowledge, goods and services in the medical community.'

'The Roundarch model is very compelling,' states Michael Graham of WPP, VP of Marketing for Roundarch. 'Roundarch answers what so many companies are asking as they deal with the fragile relationship between a brand and its customers. What's the best technology? How do you bring it all together? And, importantly, how do I create the best customer experience in both on-line and off-line worlds?'

'We are very pleased to see such a talented group of people coming together to deliver BroadVision-based solutions. This group really understands that dynamic personalization has proven to be critical in creating powerful customer relationships and brands in both B2B and B2C settings,' emphasizes Dr. Pehong Chen, president and CEO of BroadVision, Inc. 'Roundarch creates the ultimate customer and brand experience.'

'Deloitte Consulting is constantly innovating its delivery model,' explains Doug McCracken, CEO of Deloitte Consulting. 'Roundarch is already helping clients reach and understand their customers, their behavior and their needs.'

With more than 150 employees in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, Roundarch continues to rapidly expand in North America and will open offices in Europe and Asia Pacific later this year.