Woolworths Selects MetricStream for Compliance and Quality to Drive TQM

MetricStream, Inc., the market leader in enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management solutions, today announced that Woolworths Food Division, the most prestigious chain of retail stores in South Africa, has selected MetricStream as the enterprise-wide platform for managing its Total Quality Management (TQM) initiative that covers quality, safety, audit, policy and regulatory compliance programs. Woolworths will leverage the MetricStream solution to help achieve the consolidation, harmonization and streamlining of critical business processes in their foods division through an automated and workflow-based approach.

A household name throughout South Africa, Woolworths sells a wide range of products including food, clothing, beauty and homeware under its own label in over 400 stores in South Africa as well as through franchise partners in Africa and the Middle East. Woolworths is considered an icon of quality and its commitment to TQM will further strengthen its ability to deliver safety, quality, value and innovation to its customers. Woolworths has received international recognition and received the prestigious Responsible Retailer of the Year award at the World Retail Congress 2008.

The large scale retail operation requires Woolworths to implement meticulous procedures for documentation and auditing to ensure compliance with internal standards and regulatory requirements. As a result, streamlining processes and reducing the cost of compliance while maintaining the highest quality standards is a top priority. The MetricStream solution will enable safety, quality and compliance related processes, records and information to be electronically managed enabling easy access to data with the ability to perform analytics from multiple dimensions – for example, by supplier, product, product group, date, event type and issue type. With this implementation, Woolworths will replace some manual and paper-based systems that make collation of data complex and extremely time consuming.

Woolworths has selected MetricStream to manage a multitude of processes, including document control, store and supplier audits, quality benchmarking, and corrective actions (CAPA). MetricStream emerged as the vendor of choice after extensive evaluation of its product features as well as assessment of MetricStream platform’s scalability and compatibility with Woolworths IT architecture. Woolworths also conducted onsite visits to and interviews with existing MetricStream customers in the retail vertical as part of the selection process.

"The implementation of MetricStream across our operations will result in increased efficiency, greater quality, and more strategically, a harmonization of quality processes throughout our foods organisation," said Julian Novak, divisional director foods, at Woolworths. "The system’s rich out-of-the-box features and configurability allows us to streamline a number of functions - reducing the cost of our quality management and compliance efforts across the supply and distribution chain."

"In the competitive retailing environment, leading brands like Woolworths require an integrated view of data and complete control on business processes to improve performance and manage operational risks," said Shankar Bhaskaran, Senior Director and Head of International Business at MetricStream. "MetricStream is pleased to work with Woolworths and deliver the benefits of effective safety and quality management, improved operational efficiencies and reduced costs through our market leading solution."

"MetricStream is leading the industry with its comprehensive quality, compliance and risk management solution," said Shellye Archambeau, CEO of MetricStream. "We are delighted that Woolworths Foods has selected MetricStream to manage critical business processes such as audits, supplier quality and corrective actions. We feel confident that we will contribute significantly towards improving Woolworths’ performance metrics."

About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as Pfizer, Philips, NASDAQ, UBS, Sandisk, BP, Subway, Fairchild Semiconductor, Hitachi and TaylorMade-Adidas Golf in diverse industries such as Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Automotive, Food, High Tech Manufacturing, Energy and Financial Services to manage their quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as by over a million compliance professionals worldwide via www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com.