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Akeneo Honors PXM Champions at Unlock 2022

Akeneo

Akeneo, the global leader in Product Experience Management (PXM) solutions, announced today the winners of the Akeneo Unlock 2022 PXM Champions Awards. Hailed as one of the industry’s greatest recognitions, the awards honor brands that excel in using PXM best practices to drive accelerated growth, deliver outstanding product experiences, and turn challenges into opportunities as they adapt to the evolving omnichannel environment. The winners were honored at Unlock 2022, Akeneo’s flagship global summit for the Product Information Management (PIM) and PXM community, which was held on March 15th-16th in Paris. Each recipient has demonstrated extraordinary creativity, outstanding skills, and unparalleled commerce expertise in utilizing one or more of Akeneo’s PXM Studio solutions. “Consumers and business buyers demand more from brands and retailers. The new baseline is a consistent product experience across all touchpoints, which is hard enough. The differentiator is showcasing brand values, integrating environmental impact information, or highlighting second-hand collections,” says Kristin Naragon, Akeneo’s VP of Global Marketing and Strategy. “That’s why we’re so thrilled to celebrate this year’s PXM Champions. During a transformative moment for our industry, these brands have stepped up and used product experiences to take their businesses to the next level, while continuing to drive value for their customers.” The five award winners for this year are: Accelerator Award Butlers GmbH & Co.KG, the leading European retailer for home and living products, received the Accelerator Award in recognition of a successful transition from its homegrown legacy PIM solution Akeneo PIM in just six weeks, encompassing four countries, five sales channels, 15,079 products, 351 unique attributes, and just under one million data points. Working in partnership with Brandung, Butlers was able to relaunch a more powerful version of its eCommerce system in just eight weeks after implementing Akeneo PIM. With its new PIM, Butlers is able to maintain three times more data using the same amount of resources, allowing teams to double online conversion rates while reducing duplicate data maintenance and error rates companywide. Expansion Award Babolat, the world’s oldest racquet sports company, received the Expansion Award for its ambitious rollout of a D2C growth strategy after over a century of selling tennis racquets and equipment through a B2B model. Through Akeneo’s centralized product information management platform, Babolat was able to decrease time to market for new products, enabling the company to offer reliable, high-quality product information translated into eight languages from the launch of its showcase site in Europe and Japan. At the same time, the centralized product information allowed teams to streamline product data enrichment to satisfy both a B2B audience of distributors, retailers, coaches, and clubs as well as their new direct-to-customer audience of tennis players. Global Award Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the automotive manufacturer redefining the future of modern luxury vehicles, won the Global Award after a successful migration of more than one million SKUs into Akeneo’s centralized PIM platform allowed JLR teams worldwide to more effectively sell to a global audience. Led by iWin solutions architect Heddwyn Coombs, JLR leveraged Akeneo to increase speed to market for new products and collections across new territories, supporting a worldwide footprint of 39,000 employees across 195 countries, 28 languages, and 32 international websites. The speed and flexibility of Akeneo’s PIM empowered local teams to drive massive growth in 2021, increasing holiday sales for Jaguar by 174% and Land Rover by 218%. Leadership Award Azelis, the leading innovation service provider in the specialty chemicals and food ingredients industry, took home the Leadership Award for its efforts in driving an industry-leading digital transformation from traditional sales channels to online product experiences. Working closely with Smile, Azelis was able to leverage Akeneo PIM to centralize a product catalog of more than 100,000 base products with unique marketing, regulatory, and operational requirements needed to serve 58 countries while still providing unique product enrichment on a local level. In just three months since implementing Akeneo PIM, Azelis experienced a 50% efficiency gain in processing product creation while simultaneously reducing errors by 50% thanks to Akeneo’s automation, validation rules, and workflows. Experience Award JPW Industries, the leading designer, manufacturer, and value-added distributor of machinery, specialty shop tools, and equipment for rugged applications, took home the Experience Award for facing an extremely diversified group of customers, selling to industrial, consumer, and construction markets across distributor, eCommerce, and field channels. With six unique brands under its umbrella, JPW worked closely with Bounteous to utilize Akeneo’s PIM, helping improve targeted brand experiences across all channels. Through Akeneo’s governance capabilities, JPW has been able to onboard more brands into the organization than expected, helping multiply and accelerate their growth curve and setting the company up for long-term, sustainable growth. Revalize, a worldwide leader in sector-specific revenue operations software for manufacturers, distributors, and specifiers, was awarded the Experience Award for its unique use of Akeneo PIM to reflect the companies’ respective brand values across multiple geographies. Revalize, being in the unique position of being a company that deals in data instead of physical products, sought a solution as flexible as its homegrown system without the need to leverage its in-house engineering team to create and maintain it. Working in tandem with its partners at Sitation, the company saw an immediate increase in Productivity Efficiency Quality (PEQ) after implementation, and the number of product updates the team can complete in a given time frame has remained well above previous levels since, while cost per SKU has gone down significantly across products. To learn more about Akeneo and for more information on the company’s next summit taking place in Fall 2022 in Boston, please visit www.akeneo.com. About Akeneo Akeneo is a global leader in Product Experience Management (PXM) helping businesses with products to unlock growth opportunities by delivering a consistent and compelling product experience across all channels, including eCommerce, mobile, print, points of sale and beyond. With its open platform, leading PIM, add-ons, connectors and marketplace, Akeneo PXM Studio dramatically improves product data quality and accuracy, simplifies catalog management, and accelerates the sharing of product information across channels and locales. Leading global brands, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including Thras.io, Staples Canada, boohoo.com, and Air Liquide trust Akeneo to scale and customize their omnichannel commerce initiatives. Using Akeneo, brands and retailers can improve customer experience, increase sales, reduce time to market, go global, and boost team productivity. For more information: https://www.akeneo.com Contact Details N6A for Akeneo Nick Eghtessad +1 814-450-7478 akeneo@n6a.com Company Website https://www.akeneo.com

March 29, 2022 09:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Omnichannel Engagement Is Becoming a Centerpiece of Customer Experience Strategy for Many Organizations, According to Dash Research

Dash Network

Although brands have been transforming their customer experience (CX) models over the last several years, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many organizations’ plans for deploying omnichannel engagement strategies, according to a new report from Dash Research. An omnichannel strategy is a cross-channel strategy that gives a seamless and integrated experience to users across multiple channels. Unlike multichannel strategies, where each channel is managed individually, omnichannel engagement strategies streamline all customer touchpoints under a single platform, with a consistent and continuous experience for the user. “To enable omnichannel engagement, companies must remove data silos and capture and analyze customer interactions at scale,” says principal analyst Keith Kirkpatrick. “With these insights, organizations can uncover pain points, concerns, or challenges, and take action to improve omnichannel CX and drive increased customer retention and loyalty.” Kirkpatrick adds that there are five key market drivers for the growth of omnichannel engagement strategies: Poor levels of customer support A growing shift to digital interactions Changing demographics of customers The COVID-19 impact on sales, service, and support CX as a competitive differentiator Like any technology or approach, however, there are technical and operational barriers to complete market adoption. Dash Research’s analysis indicates that the most notable barriers to adopting and incorporating an omnichannel engagement strategy within the enterprise are: Technical challenges with implementing disparate software and workflow processes A lack of an agreed-upon and supported omnichannel vision Training and personnel issues Privacy issues Dash Research’s report, “Omnichannel Customer Engagement”, examines the market issues, drivers, and barriers for the use of platforms, software applications, and services that enable the deployment of omnichannel engagement strategies for CX. Several case studies illustrating the various ways omnichannel engagement is being used by end users are included in the report, along with best practices, software selection criteria, and recommendations for deploying omnichannel engagement strategies. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website. About Dash Research Dash Research, the market intelligence arm of Dash Network, provides in-depth research and insights on the worldwide CX market including a comprehensive assessment of technology solutions, business issues, market drivers, and end-user dynamics across industry sectors. Dash Research’s global market coverage combines qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide a complete view of emerging business opportunities surrounding contact center technologies, customer data & analytics, customer data platforms, customer insights & feedback, customer relationship management, personalization & optimization, and employee experience. For more information, visit www.dashresearch.com or call +1.720.603.1700. Dash Network is an independent, integrated B2B research, events, and digital media platform focused on best business practices and technology solutions for the global Customer Experience (CX) market. The company provides a unique, CX-focused, full-service content and marketing solution, designed to enable industry participants’ strategic planning and go-to-market initiatives, while simultaneously extending the market reach of corporate brands and product messaging to a global audience of CX practitioners. For more information, visit www.dashnetwork.com or call +1.720.603.1700. Contact Details Clint Wheelock +1 720-603-1700 press@dashnetwork.com Company Website http://www.dashnetwork.com

March 29, 2022 05:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Minuteman Press Franchise in Irvine, CA Achieves Record Monthly Sales Driven By Apparel and Promotional Products Growth

Minuteman Press International Inc

Frank Matsumoto is the owner of Minuteman Press located at 18 Technology Drive, Suite 171, in Irvine, California. Frank has owned the business since 2010 and recently achieved record monthly sales. Frank says, “My growth was sparked by increases in apparel and promotional products sales. This made up 60% of my business while wide format printing was also a growth driver for us.” For nearly 12 years, Frank has built his brand by building relationships and following the Minuteman Press franchise business model to market his business. “I personally visit other local businesses to get to know other people and so they can get to know me. It also gives me the chance to see what they are doing in terms of promotional products as behind every counter are items like cups, pens, and t-shirts. Everywhere I go, I make sure to wear branded Minuteman Press apparel and I come prepared with our branded product catalogs. It starts with me wearing my own branded apparel and showing them our products, and then it goes – and grows – from there.” “As soon as I educate clients on our ability to go beyond printing, their mindset changes and suddenly they realize they can use our services for their apparel and promotional needs.” -Frank Matsumoto, owner, Minuteman Press franchise, Irvine, CA One client that has taken full advantage of Minuteman Press’ printing, apparel, and promotional products capabilities is HI-CHEW ™. Frank says, “We started our relationship on a phone call for a rush order of postcards. I visited with them, introduced myself, and secured the order. At first, we did a run of 25,000 die-cut postcards. This turned into a reorder for 75,000 and then later over 100,000 die-cut postcards featuring HI-CHEW™ products and coupons.” Frank continues, “Thanks to fulfilling that first order and then building that relationship, the number of items we’ve provided for HI-CHEW™ has grown considerably over the past four years. At the end of 2021, we did their string backpacks, sunglasses, laminated tote bags, t-shirts, 13,000 hand sanitizers, keychains, and stickers on their specialty buckets. We also provide branded apparel for their employees and for customer giveaways.” “There’s no way to replace the touch and feel of a promotional item or printed piece. It is simply good business to use print as a marketing tool to reach your target audience and help increase brand awareness as well as ROI.” -Frank Matsumoto Over the past two years, Minuteman Press in Irvine has remained open and operating throughout the pandemic as an essential business. During that time, Frank ramped up his marketing across all channels. He says, “We used mailers, built up our social media, and solidified our presence by generating positive Google reviews. We have earned a 5-star rating with nearly 100 reviews, and we are proud to receive such amazing customer feedback.” Today, as more business events return to Irvine, Frank has seen an uptick in trade show supplies. Frank says, “Orders for trade shows can include everything from booth displays, banners, and table throws to apparel and promotional products. For all of these items, Minuteman Press is here to help.“ “Irvine has one of the largest business hubs in Orange County. There are a lot of opportunities here, and I also am in a business complex building relationships each day with other business owners. I’ve used a combination of direct marketing, promotional mailers, email marketing, social media marketing, and networking through my BNI group to grow over the years.” Prior to franchising with Minuteman Press, Frank worked in sales. “I was looking at several franchises and did my due diligence. I really liked the structure of Minuteman Press, as well as the B2B nature of the business. I didn’t want to rely on walk-ins like a general retail store, and I love the Monday-Friday business hours. It gives me the freedom and flexibility to do things like pick up my daughter from school and take her to her fencing class while still being able to build my business.” Frank appreciates the ongoing local support he’s received from Minuteman Press since buying the business. “Whenever I need something, Dan Byers and the regional team is here to help me. I also like the FLEX software we use to manage all of the different aspects of the business.” When asked what the biggest lesson he’s learned over the past 12 years as a business owner, Frank answers, “What comes to mind is one of the first things that was taught during the Minuteman Press training program. There was a sign that said, ‘If you don’t market, you won’t make it.’ Over the years, and especially over the past two years, I can say that marketing has been huge for our sustained growth and success.” For more information on Minuteman Press in Irvine, CA, visit their website: https://www.irvine.minutemanpress.com. Learn more about #1 rated Minuteman Press franchise opportunities and read Minuteman Press franchise reviews at https://minutemanpressfranchise.com. Contact Details Minuteman Press International Chris Biscuiti +1 631-249-1370 cbiscuiti@mpihq.com Company Website https://minutemanpressfranchise.com

March 28, 2022 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Contact Center Customer Experience Software and Services Revenue Will Surpass $18 Billion by 2026, According to Dash Research

Dash Network

Today’s business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) organizations have been evolving their call centers into contact centers, which are designed to take a more active role in delivering great customer experience (CX) via an omnichannel engagement strategy that focuses on improving the overall experience of the customer across all touchpoints, rather than just traditional call center key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. According to a new report from Dash Research, this approach is leading to the purchase of new software and services that not only incorporate basic customer data, but also integrate customer journey information to help provide the most appropriate level of service (which can range from a self-service tool to a voice conversation or other digital interaction with a live agent specialist). The end goal, of course, is to ensure that the customer’s sales, support or administrative engagements with the company are efficient, convenient, and successful. Dash Research projects that the market for contact center software and services will reach $18.1 billion by 2026, increasing from $13.8 billion in 2019, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4%. The CX market intelligence firm’s analysis indicates that contact center software is likely to be purchased by organizations that have adequate financial resources to deploy each year, as most contact center software is now being sold via an “as a service” subscription model. Additionally, companies that have a dedicated focus on improving the overall CX are also prime candidates for purchasing new technology, as they realize that single-channel, primarily voice-based CXs are rarely preferred by customers. “Providing excellent and consistent experiences can and will be bolstered by investments in contact center applications, platforms and services,” says principal analyst Keith Kirkpatrick. “But overall improvements in CX ultimately depend on an organization taking an assessment of its current CX policies and procedures, listening to customers, identifying the level of service is wants to provide, and then implementing specific operational and behavioral changes.” Kirkpatrick adds that the key adoption drivers of software for contact centers include: An increase in digital engagement from B2C and B2B customers A mandate for more efficient contact center labor and resource allocation A desire to deploy a multichannel or omnichannel engagement strategy A push to generate revenue via contact centers A demand to improve the overall CX However, despite the increasing appetite for deploying new technology tools to improve the efficiency, speed, and effectiveness of contact centers, organizations face several barriers to implementation, including: Technical integration challenges Issues with data quality and data availability Data governance, privacy, and security concerns Return on investment (ROI) considerations Agent dissatisfaction and turnover Support and training Dash Research’s report, “CX for Contact Centers”, examines the market issues, drivers, and barriers for CX and CE software platforms, software applications, and services that incorporate or facilitate the personalization and/or optimization of CXs. Several case studies illustrating the various ways personalization & optimization efforts are being deployed by end users are included in the report. The scope of the market forecasts includes software that is deployed by Dash Research’s ecosystem of companies that spans 20 industries, 5 world regions, and 3 offerings (software platforms, software applications, and professional services). The forecast takes 2019 as a base year, forecasts market value from 2021 through 2026, and segments the market by offering, geography, and function (CX versus CE). An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website. Dash Research, the market intelligence arm of Dash Network, provides in-depth research and insights on the worldwide CX market including a comprehensive assessment of technology solutions, business issues, market drivers, and end-user dynamics across industry sectors. Dash Research’s global market coverage combines qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide a complete view of emerging business opportunities surrounding contact center technologies, customer data & analytics, customer data platforms, customer insights & feedback, customer relationship management, personalization & optimization, and employee experience. For more information, visit www.dashresearch.com or call +1.720.603.1700. Contact Details Clint Wheelock +1 720-603-1700 press@dashnetwork.com Company Website http://www.dashnetwork.com

March 28, 2022 05:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Akeneo Releases 2022 Global B2C Survey Report Outlining Consumers’ Satisfaction with Product Experiences

Akeneo

Akeneo, the global leader in product experience management (PXM) and product information management (PIM), today released its 2022 B2C Survey: Product Experience Satisfaction Around the World, which outlines how the quality and consistency of product information play a significant role in consumers’ buying decisions. For the study, Akeneo set out to gain insight into exactly how consumers make decisions when buying products and what product information they use to make those decisions. The surveys were conducted from January 28 to February 8 and were completed by 1,800 consumers aged 18 and older from Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The resulting report is aimed to assist brands in understanding what consumers’ expectations are when evaluating products, thus highlighting the importance of prioritizing enriched product experiences. Akeneo uncovered important buying trends across global consumers, including how online search engines remain the primary way consumers shop for products. Consumers around the world also continue to utilize research-online-buy-offline as a common method of shopping, prioritize brand values when making purchasing decisions, and appreciate an enhanced shopping experience. Top insights from the 2022 B2C Survey include: Consistent with 2021, the channels most often used to obtain opinions are search engines (32%), social media (25%), online marketplaces (23%), online comparison sites (19%) and store salespeople (18%). 87% of consumers have researched products online before buying in a store, a 6% increase since 2021. 74% of consumers agreed that they find additional product information when they look in multiple places, an 8% decrease since 2021. 64% of consumers would purchase another product due to a lack of product information. 66% of consumers would cease buying a brand due to bad product information experience. 48% of consumers are willing to pay more if a merchant/retailer offered a more exciting and compelling shopping experience, a 3% increase since 2021. "The way we shop is rapidly changing and it's essential to understand not only how and where consumers are engaging with your products, but what their expectations are for your brand." said Fred de Gombert, CEO at Akeneo. "The product experience that you design for your various online channels must first be consistent and second be continued through all the points where your consumers will be making their purchases and returns, be they digital or physical. This survey provides retailers with a roadmap of what to prioritize when thinking about their omnichannel strategy, with rich and consistent product experiences being at the top of the list.” Last year, Akeneo released its first global B2C survey report and it has quickly become the premier benchmark report for retailers making decisions on omnichannel product experiences. This year, the 2021 survey was repeated with minor amendments to the questionnaire, in order to compare consumers' product experience satisfaction year-over-year. The 2022 Global B2C Survey Report is accessible here. About Akeneo Akeneo is a global leader in Product Experience Management (PXM) helping businesses with products to unlock growth opportunities by delivering a consistent and compelling product experience across all channels, including eCommerce, mobile, print, points of sale and beyond. With its open platform, leading PIM, add-ons, connectors and marketplace, Akeneo PXM Studio dramatically improves product data quality and accuracy, simplifies catalog management, and accelerates the sharing of product information across channels and locales. Leading global brands, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including Thras.io, Staples Canada, boohoo.com, and Air Liquide trust Akeneo to scale and customize their omnichannel commerce initiatives. Using Akeneo, brands and retailers can improve customer experience, increase sales, reduce time to market, go global, and boost team productivity. For more information: https://www.akeneo.com Contact Details N6A for Akeneo Nick Eghtessad +1 814-450-7478 akeneo@n6a.com Company Website https://www.akeneo.com

March 24, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Minuteman Press Printing Franchise in Libertyville, Illinois Has Grand Opening

Minuteman Press International Inc

Tamika and Martin Neal are the new owners of their Minuteman Press franchise located at 113 E. Cook Ave., Libertyville IL 60048. They recently held their grand opening in conjunction with the GLMV Chamber of Commerce. Tamika says, “At Minuteman Press in Libertyville, we pride ourselves on personalized service. We can transform your vision into a creative, professional product for a full range of printed materials.” Prior to becoming Minuteman Press owners, Tamika and Martin worked in real estate and law enforcement. Tamika shares, “Martin was and is currently a police officer. I was a realtor and we jointly invested in real estate primarily in Chicago.” “We chose to franchise with Minuteman Press because they are highly ranked in the printing industry and have a proven track record of success. We were very impressed with the ongoing training and support and the ability to have a local field representative assist us as we grow our business.” -Tamika Neal, Minuteman Press franchise owner, Libertyville, IL Already, Minuteman Press in Libertyville is helping their clients by providing high-quality, in-demand products. Tamika says, “We’re finding that brochures, booklets, and direct mail are in very high demand. These marketing materials help businesses stand-out, stay top of mind, and attract new customers.” For more information on Minuteman Press in Libertyville, visit https://minuteman.com/us/locations/il/libertyville. Learn more about #1 rated Minuteman Press franchise opportunities at https://minutemanpressfranchise.com. Contact Details Chris Biscuiti +1 631-249-1370 cbiscuiti@mpihq.com Company Website https://minutemanpressfranchise.com

March 22, 2022 09:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Roberts & Ryan Teams with Robert Irvine Supporting Our Nation's Veterans

Roberts & Ryan Investments, Inc.

Contact Details For Press Inquiries Please Contact Joe Pecoraro +1 917-658-8945 jpecoraro@roberts-ryan.com Company Website https://www.roberts-ryan.com

March 22, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Akeneo Announces Launch of App Store at Annual PXM Summit

Akeneo

Akeneo, the global leader in product experience management (PXM), announced at their annual conference, Unlock 2022, the launch of the Akeneo App Store as a part of the new product features and benefits debuting in its Spring 2022 Release. As a part of this latest collection of SaaS updates, the company also announced new capabilities and enhancements to Akeneo PXM Studio, including a sneak preview of a powerful new Tailored Imports feature, improvements to its Shared Catalogs and Onboarder products, and the launch of its latest Community Edition and managed services version. Akeneo App Store for Speed of Customizing Akeneo PIM The Akeneo App Store launches with new apps covering a wide range of categories including syndication, e-commerce, data enrichment, and product catalog publishing. Technology solutions such as BigCommerce, ChannelEngine, InBetween, priint, Productsup, Tradebyte by Eikona, and Unifai are among the first to launch their apps on the Akeneo App Store. The Akeneo App Store will make it easier than ever for Akeneo PIM customers to leverage valuable product data across a vast ecosystem of commerce technologies. Through the Akeneo App Store, customers can search and activate relevant certified apps, install apps with one click, configure them simply without IT support, and manage those integrations, all right from within Akeneo PIM. Akeneo has already seen great success with its vast ecosystem that offers over 130 extensions and connectors developed by Akeneo and its partners for its open source-based and hosted solutions. The all-new Akeneo App Store has replaced the Akeneo Marketplace for Growth and Enterprise Edition customers. Akeneo’s partners will benefit from reaching a larger audience of PIM customers faster than before and are therefore able to realize a better return on their integration investments while empowering developers through access to training, support, documentation, and certification by Akeneo. Jorrit Steinz, CEO of ChannelEngine, said, “In November 2019, we partnered with Akeneo to pursue an important joint mission: to create a single, centralized source of truth that is capable of aggregating, standardizing, enriching, localizing, and managing product content for experience-optimized syndication. We are proud to be an early adopter of the Akeneo App Store and look forward to further extending the capabilities of Akeneo’s PIM by syndicating the best-in-class product information from Akeneo’s PIM to all of the world’s most powerful marketplaces.” Tailored Imports for Ease of Incorporating Data from Flat files Concurrently Akeneo is providing a sneak preview of Tailored Imports which allows users to take files of any structure and easily map the data provided to their Akeneo PIM catalog. Tailored Imports removes the time often spent on manipulating files by ensuring that the types, format, and quality of data provided to Akeneo PIM is streamlined and consistent. The feature’s intuitive technology also allows users to create and save formats so that after they upload a file once it will work for that type of file each time. Akeneo Shared Catalogs & Onboarder updates for Enhanced Collaboration Akeneo’s Spring 2022 Release also brings key updates to its data collaboration solutions, Akeneo Shared Catalogs and Akeneo Onboarder. With branded PDF exports, support for additional languages, and an improved catalog grid and management experience, Shared Catalogs removes the friction when it comes to sharing accurate product information with external and internal stakeholders who don’t require access directly to the PIM. Akeneo Onboarder users can now collaborate easier than ever before with their suppliers with the release of in-app notifications, commenting, product statuses, and more. V6 for Customers on Annual Release offerings like Community Edition or Managed Services Finally, the company is releasing the latest version of its open-source and managed services PIM offering, Akeneo PIM V6, which will be accessible to all customers that do not currently use Akeneo’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product. The latest version encompasses more than 75 features released in 2021 including Table Attributes, Tailored Exports, and more. Akeneo’s SaaS customers benefited immediately from these new features as they were made available throughout the year “With our Spring 2022 Release, in addition to the more than 75 releases Akeneo delivered in 2021, we are demonstrating our commitment to investing in key strategic areas across our product line,” said Nicolas Dupont, CPO of Akeneo. “From product data collection, to enrichment and distribution capabilities, Akeneo is setting a benchmark for how to empower customers and partners with a solution for PXM that constantly innovates and delivers real business impact at virtually any scale.” Akeneo will be showcasing these updates at Unlock 2022, the annual global summit for the PIM and PXM community taking place from March 15-16 in Paris, with demonstrations of the latest features and capabilities from Akeneo’s product team. To learn more, please visit: https://unlock.akeneo.com/ About Akeneo Akeneo is a global leader in Product Experience Management (PXM) helping businesses with products to unlock growth opportunities by delivering a consistent and compelling product experience across all channels, including eCommerce, mobile, print, points of sale and beyond. With its open platform, leading PIM, add-ons, connectors and marketplace, Akeneo PXM Studio dramatically improves product data quality and accuracy, simplifies catalog management, and accelerates the sharing of product information across channels and locales. Leading global brands, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including Thras.io, boohoo.com, Staples Canada, and Air Liquide trust Akeneo to scale and customize their omnichannel commerce initiatives. Using Akeneo, brands and retailers can improve customer experience, increase sales, reduce time to market, go global, and boost team productivity. For more information: https://www.akeneo.com Contact Details N6A for Akeneo Nick Eghtessad +1 814-450-7478 akeneo@n6a.com Company Website https://www.akeneo.com

March 16, 2022 05:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Elevate Brands Adds A New $400m Credit Facility To Accelerate Rapid Growth, Exceeds $590 Million In Total Capital Raised

Elevate Brands

Elevate Brands, a leader in acquiring and operating Amazon FBA businesses, announced today a refinancing and upsizing of their credit facility to $400M. Led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, this brings the company’s funding total to $590M. With this fresh capital the company is on track to scale their portfolio to 45 brands over the next few quarters. This funding comes off the heels of their most recent $55M equity round in October 2021, led by Soroban Capital, with support from Upper90 and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. "The Amazon Marketplace ecosystem continues to grow at a rapid pace with more opportunities than ever,” said Ryan Gnesin, CEO of Elevate Brands. “We are excited to partner with BlackRock as we continue our disciplined and highly selective M&A strategy.” To date, Elevate Brands has acquired a robust portfolio of 32 Amazon FBA third party brands. The start-up has recently announced a first-of-its-kind initiative called “Cash or Coin” where they provide Amazon sellers the option to be paid out in bitcoin or USD when selling their business. Now with 200+ employees, Elevate Brands’ team continues to grow. The startup has poached top talent highlighted by the recent appointment of Yury Gurevich, a former Amazon executive, who joined as Chief Operating Officer and Jonathan Sipling, a former Wayfair executive, who joined as Chief Revenue Officer. ABOUT ELEVATE BRANDS Elevate Brands is a digitally focused global consumer products company established via Amazon Marketplace acquisitions and private label launches. With headquarters in Austin and New York, Elevate has a team of more than 200 industry leading ecommerce experts located throughout the world. Elevate has raised more than $370m from leading global institutional investors, is a top 100 seller on Amazon and has a portfolio of 32 private label brands. Learn more at https://www.elevatebrands.com. Contact Details Elevate Brands Rachel Hartz +1 708-825-6677 rachel@elevatebrands.com Company Website https://www.elevatebrands.com

March 15, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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