Lawson Software Helps Catholic Health Initiatives Save $125 Million in Supply Chain Costs

ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2009-- Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) recently completed its organization-wide deployment of Lawson Software’s (Nasdaq: LWSN) full suite of business applications. Today, 45,000 CHI employees use the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System, which is helping CHI reduce operational costs, centralize key business functions, and gain an enterprise-wide view of staffing, turnover and financial data.

Since the inception of the project, CHI has achieved supply chain cost savings of $125 million, according to Joni Ritler, vice president of Supply Chain, Catholic Health Initiatives. CHI estimates it could achieve an ongoing reduction in annual operational costs of $50 to $60 million based on automated processes and productivity gains supported by the unified Lawson system, according to Paul Parish, the Catholic Health Initiatives vice president responsible for the implementation.

“Lawson is helping us create a new operational model with a common set of efficient administrative processes so we can free up staff time and dollars to focus on patient care,” said Michael Rowan, executive vice president and chief operating officer for CHI. “By centralizing our core business functions, such as human resources, payroll, accounts payable and procurement, we can use the Lawson system to help us drive significant savings long-term and improve decision making with organization-wide access to information and reports.”

Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives is the nation’s second-largest, faith-based health system. It has 70,000 employees and operates 77 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities; and two community health-services organizations in 20 states. Together, those facilities provided $536 million in charity care and community benefit during CHI’s 2008 fiscal year.

CHI took an innovative approach to its system deployment by rolling out the entire set of Lawson applications to groups of hospitals and other facilities in several overlapping “waves.” This implementation model has succeeded in its objective to accelerate installation and benefits realization while helping to minimize disruption to operations.

“Our accelerated 24-month, six-wave rollout was possible thanks to the staffing model and Project Management Office Lawson helped us create,” added Parish. Due to the project’s size and multiple geographies, Lawson Professional Services, Deloitte Consulting, Computer Sciences Corporation and Hitachi Consulting all provided implementation support. CHI also enlisted more than 20 other Lawson partners and many independent contractors to supplement its national implementation team in order to meet the 24-month accelerated rollout schedule. “We leveraged Deloitte Consulting’s strengths in project management and HR and payroll design and implementation, CSC’s expertise in supply chain, Hitachi Consulting’s work in training and conversions and the expertise and dedication of all our partners to apply repeatable processes and key learnings to each new wave,” added Parish.

“Given the size and scope of the organization and project, this is one of the fastest rollouts of Lawson applications we’ve encountered. We are delighted that CHI was able to leverage our strong network of partners with outstanding success,” said Jim Catalino, senior vice president, Lawson Global Healthcare.

“Non-profit healthcare providers – often the last resort for the uninsured – face a particularly challenging environment today as uncompensated care increases and reimbursements continue to decline,” said Stacey Hicks, director of healthcare marketing for Lawson. “Healthcare organizations need systems that provide a faster return on investment and faster time to value, which allows them to focus more of their attention and resources on delivering superior patient care.”

Lawson serves more than 500 healthcare industry customers representing more than 4,500 facilities, including eight of the top 10 integrated delivery networks. The company also serves managed care systems, academic medical centers, hospitals, clinics, physician group practices, home healthcare, long-term care and other health services enterprises. Lawson solutions help healthcare organizations manage their business so they can focus on their patients, automate and streamline materials management for a better bottom line, and overcome the challenges of the labor shortage.

About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,500 customers in healthcare, manufacturing, distribution, maintenance, public sector and service sector industries across 40 countries. Lawson’s solutions include Enterprise Performance Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Enterprise Asset Management and industry-tailored applications. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance. Lawson is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and has offices around the world. Visit Lawson online at www.lawson.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in uncertainties in the software industry; uncertainties as to when and whether the conditions for the recognition of deferred revenue will be satisfied; increased competition; general economic conditions; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; continuation of the global credit crisis; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks; pandemics, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company's targeted industries and other risk factors listed in the company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release.