Kewill acquires Perwill to extend its leadership in the EDI and collaborative commerce marketplace

Kewill Systems, the leader in supply chain execution software, announced today the completed acquisition of Perwill Plc (Perwill). Perwill is a UK based collaborative commerce solution provider with over 31 years experience and a strong client base predominantly within the Insurance, Financial Services and Food Services markets, including Legal & General, HSBC, Geest, 3663 and Londis. The acquisition brings with it a highly experienced team of sales, professional services, support, managed services and development people as well as a highly scalable business to business (B2B) collaborative commerce technology platform, Perwill eBiz-ManagerTM.

Kewill is a leading player in the Retail, Manufacturing and Building & Construction e-commerce space and we are committed to extending our leadership in the business-to-business (B2B) solution space outside our existing target markets. Our depth of experience in managing over 3200 on-line clients through our hosted solutions saw us process more than 3.84 billion of electronic order data via over 18 million real time electronic transactions during the last 12 months. said Jacquie Boast, Managing Director, Kewill Solutions Europe. The acquisition of Perwill will significantly increase our presence in the Insurance, Financial Services and Food Services markets, making Kewill one of the largest European based providers of EDI and collaborative commerce solutions and will support our expansion into the North American and Asia-Pacific markets, stated Jacquie Boast.

Perwills eBiz-Manager software supports business looking to implement inter- and intra-enterprise collaborative commerce, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML), B2B integration, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and trading exchange initiatives. The Perwill eBiz-ManagerTM solution can be delivered as a software license or hosted service to meet the specific needs of each and every customer. With the capability to deliver all of the world wide global messaging standards, the technology will be incorporated into the Kewill Trade suite to enable vertical and geographical expansions.

Perwill is a UK Plc with 20 employees who will transfer to Kewill Solutions European Order Fulfilment division. Perwill has been led from inception by Bill Pugsley, co-founder and Managing Director. Bill will undertake a consultative role with Kewill where he will bring to bear the experience he has accumulated over more than 19 years in the Global EDI markets. Bill is a leading figure in the e-commerce marketplace and is currently a board member for GS1 UK and works tirelessly to support the implementation of international best practice and standards in all sectors of commerce, to include Bar Coding, EDI, XML and RFID.

Bill Pugsley, Managing Director of Perwill, said today We have always respected Kewill as a significant player in the supply chain execution market and we are excited to now be part of Kewill. The combination of Kewills overall leadership and presence along with Perwills internationally deployed solutions and impressive customer base, will create a solid foundation to support Kewills growth plans.

Jacquie Boast stated We are delighted that industry leader Bill Pugsley has accepted a consulting position with Kewill to help develop our products and market strategy and grow our business in Europe and North America. His industry leadership roles and partnership development will play an important part in ensuring that we maintain our position at the forefront of EDI standards and technology solutions that deliver strong return on investment.

Reasons for the acquisition:
The acquisition builds upon Kewills order management and fulfilment offerings by increasing its expertise in EDI, XML, B2B and collaborative commerce and thereby enhancing its position as a leading supplier of EDI and order management and fulfilment solutions.
The Perwill eBiz-Manager product includes compliance with the vast majority of global EDI messaging standards and as such opens up new industries and geographies for Kewills solutions. Additionally, the product is 100% compatible across the many operating systems that it works on, which include Windows, Linux, major UNIX (such as AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris & Tru64) and AS/400.
The acquisition brings additional vertical market domain expertise with strong client reference cases allowing Kewill to immediately take a leading position in providing solutions for customers in these industries.