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Press Release

April 5, 2012

Exact Sciences "Goes Live" With SAP® Business All-in-One Partner Solution From Answerthink

MIAMI, April 5, 2012 - Answerthink, a division of The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) focused on providing and supporting SAP® solutions, today announced that while leveraging SAP's fast-start implementation approach, it has delivered a successful go-live implementation of EzLifeSciences™, a qualified SAP Business All-in-One partner solution for the life sciences industry, at Exact Sciences Corporation.

Exact Sciences, headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, is a molecular diagnostics company focused on the early detection of colorectal cancer. The company is developing a non-invasive, molecular screening test which is designed to detect both colorectal cancer and pre-cancer. Stool-based DNA (sDNA) technology is included in the colorectal cancer screening guidelines of the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer.

Exact Sciences wanted to simplify its business processes through the use of an integrated solution that would provide functionality including the automation of routine or repetitive tasks and the reduction of duplicate, manual and paper-based processes. In addition, it wanted to standardize its data and processes while aligning functional activities with overall corporate strategic goals. Lastly, Exact Sciences wanted timely consolidation of financials with the ability to use a single database across the enterprise for business analytics and performance measurements.

The implementation of the SAP solution was completed in 11 weeks, and included base functionality in the following areas:

  • Finance - general ledger, account payables and product costing
  • Materials Management - purchasing (including PR release strategy), approved vendors through source lists and inventory management
  • Production Planning - from forecasting material requirement planning to manufacturing
  • Quality Management - product release
  • Sales & Distribution - limited sales order management (FOC) and returns processing

Exact Sciences Corporation went live with an FDA-validated solution on-time and on-budget.

"As a small company with very limited ERP experience and limited business processes, implementation of an enterprise application can be seen as challenging," said Jay Schiestle, senior director of Operations, Exact Sciences Corporation. "Our Answerthink partners had not only the SAP solution expertise, but also deep business experience that benefited us tremendously during implementation. Answerthink's flexibility and willingness to tailor its approach to our needs was critical in helping us achieve a very challenging implementation timeline."

EzLifeSciences is an industry-specific offering from Answerthink based on best practices from SAP and customized for growing companies in pharmaceutical manufacturing industries. It is part of Answerthink's family of preconfigured solutions that are designed specifically to help life sciences companies achieve goals such as streamlined product development, manufacture reporting automation and regulatory compliance, and supporting critical business processes.

"The integrated nature of the solution has brought cross-functional areas closer together to make faster decisions," said Kyle Stacey, controller, Exact Sciences Corporation. "Having implemented the SAP Business All-in-One solution puts us in a great position to be able to achieve our short-term and long-term goals. We could not have completed the implementation without the strong team that Answerthink provided."

According to John McGrath, principal of the SAP Solutions Group, Answerthink, "SAP Business All-in-One will provide Exact Sciences the needed platform to maximize its operations. Upon implementation of the use of the SAP solution, Exact Sciences was processing business activities on day one. The closed-loop solution with complete tracking of every individual item throughout the process is exactly what was required at Exact Sciences. Our EzLifeSciences solution is proving superior value to this growing, innovative customer. Many small and midsize companies are coming to the conclusion that they can take on world-class software from SAP if a preconfigured, industry-based approach is used."

Answerthink is a strategic business and technology consulting firm that enables companies to achieve world-class business performance.


About Answerthink

Answerthink (www.answerthink.com) is an SAP gold channel partner that develops and offers qualified SAP Business All-in-One partner solutions - industry-specific software, implementation and training packaged solutions. By leveraging the best practices database of The Hackett Group, Answerthink helps clients improve performance and maximize returns on investments in SAP software. Answerthink is a division of The Hackett Group.


About The Hackett Group, Inc.

The Hackett Group (NASDAQ: HCKT), a global strategic advisory and operations improvement consulting firm, is a leader in best practice advisory, benchmarking, and transformation consulting services including strategy and operations, working capital management, and globalization advice.

Utilizing best practices and implementation insights from more than 5,000 benchmarking engagements, executives use The Hackett Group's empirically-based approach to quickly define and implement initiatives to enable world-class performance. Through its REL group, The Hackett Group offers working capital solutions focused on delivering significant cash flow improvements. Through its Archstone Consulting group, The Hackett Group offers Strategy & Operations consulting services in the Consumer and Industrial Products, Pharmaceutical, Manufacturing and Financial Services industry sectors. Through its Hackett Technology Solutions group, The Hackett Group offers business application consulting services that help maximize returns on IT investments. The Hackett Group has completed over 5,000 benchmark studies with 2,700 major corporations and government agencies, including 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 73% of the Fortune 100, 73% of the DAX 30 and 50% of the FTSE 100.

More information on The Hackett Group is available: by phone at (770) 225-7300; by e-mail at info@thehackettgroup.com.