NIKU Niku Corp (MM)

Customer Advisory Board Cites People as Key Driver for Faster Time to Market and More Innovative Products Niku Corporation (Nasdaq:NIKU) today announced that a growing list of customers are using Clarity from Niku to drive new product development (NPD) in their organizations. Niku also revealed findings from its NPD Customer Advisory Board showing that effectively managing people is the most critical success factor for new product initiatives. With its unique capabilities for supporting People Powered Innovation, Clarity is becoming the NPD solution of choice for companies looking to foster innovation and speed time to market. Clarity enables users to manage all aspects of the product innovation lifecycle, from idea generation through portfolio management, project collaboration, production and delivery. Key to the solution is a focus on People Powered Innovation, which provides companies with tools to facilitate collaboration and gain greater visibility into people-related processes such as idea development, resource capacity planning and project staffing. Industry leaders such as Access Group, Armstrong World Industries, Autobytel Inc., Baker Hughes, Misys Healthcare Systems, MSC.Software, United Online and Vivendi Universal Games are among the many companies successfully leveraging Clarity for NPD. "Continual innovation is critical for maintaining competitive advantage and sustaining growth," says Marc Halpern, research director at Gartner. "To drive innovation, and turn ideas into profits, companies need to successfully manage their people across the new product development lifecycle -- from deciding which ideas to pursue, to developing those ideas into products, to delivering those products to the marketplace. To support these efforts, companies can benefit from new product development solutions with integrated product portfolio analysis, resource capacity planning and team collaboration capabilities." "One of the most overlooked, yet critical, factors in driving new product success is the people who make innovation happen," says Josh Pickus, CEO of Niku. "Clarity from Niku takes NPD management beyond the simple routing of documents and CAD designs. Clarity gives today's leading companies the power to take their best ideas to market with greater speed and agility by providing visibility into people across dispersed R&D organizations, and giving them the tools to create, prioritize, plan and execute winning product strategies." Clarity for NPD Customers Speak Out Niku's NPD Customer Advisory Board includes members representing the most dynamic industries in R&D, including software development, consumer electronics, food and beverage, and life sciences. According to the Advisory Board, the critical factor in fostering innovation and speeding time to market is the visibility and management of the people involved in product development processes. Niku's customers are using Clarity for NPD to manage key people-related processes including schedule and resource visibility, collaboration, and resource capacity planning. High-quality, innovative products and services have made Armstrong World Industries, Inc., a global leader in the design and manufacturing of floors, ceilings and cabinets. Armstrong is using Clarity to manage NPD across R&D, design, engineering and manufacturing worldwide. "We are committed to continually delivering the product excellence that our customers have come to know and expect," says Mark Young, PMO director at Armstrong. "Clarity will give us unprecedented visibility into new product development initiatives spanning multiple business units. Clarity's idea-to-market view will enable us to quickly capture ideas and effectively allocate resources to our constantly changing customer market. Armstrong's logo, 'Your ideas become reality,' addresses this true spirit of new product development within our company, and Clarity will help us to transform our product ideas into reality." Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) is using Clarity from Niku to centralize management of the company's game title release process. The Clarity solution allows the organization to provide accurate, real-time global reporting and visibility into resources, key activities and milestones of each title for all levels of the company. "Before Clarity, we had different groups within the organization using different tools and reports to manage product development efforts," says Mark Aubin, director of IT business applications at VU Games. "Now, we have a single, global view of all products in development, key milestones and responsible resources, so that we can more accurately and strategically plan, report and react to potential risks to our product launches." Computer Associates will be rolling out Clarity for NPD to its distributed product development network. This decision was made prior to CA's agreement to acquire Niku. "Niku has a strong product offering for NPD with a unique and compelling value proposition for managing what is perhaps the most critical factor in the innovation process: the people," said Jacob Lamm, senior vice president and general manager of Business Service Optimization at CA. "We expect that Niku's technology will help us optimize management of the human resources involved in our own innovation processes, which, in turn, will enable us to increase the productivity and business impact of research and development." Clarity for NPD: Decide, Develop and Deliver Focusing on People Powered Innovation, Clarity provides visibility and control over the three integrated stages of the product development lifecycle: -- Decide: Deciding which products to pursue is the most critical element of product development. Clarity provides the visibility and analysis businesses need to determine not only the most innovative and profitable product portfolio, but also the most realistic and achievable based on their most critical and limited resources. -- Develop: Successful product development hinges on seamless execution. The robust capabilities in Clarity ensure that an organization's people are as efficient and productive as possible. Extending beyond the basics of project management, Clarity provides rich collaboration, resource management and knowledge management for geographically dispersed development teams. -- Deliver: Successfully launching a product into the global marketplace is essential for maximizing product revenues. Clarity provides deep functionality to ensure that manufacturing, marketing and services personnel have everything they need to make innovative products a success. About Niku Niku Corporation (Nasdaq:NIKU) is the leader in New Product Development (NPD) and IT Management and Governance (IT-MG) solutions. More than 400,000 users at 400 companies use Clarity from Niku. Niku's NPD customers include industry leaders such as Access Group, Armstrong World Industries, Autobytel Inc., Baker Hughes, Misys Healthcare Systems, MSC.Software, United Online and Vivendi Universal Games. With headquarters in Silicon Valley, Niku serves global customers from more than 20 offices worldwide. For more information, contact info@niku.com or visit http://www.niku.com. Niku and the Niku logo are registered trademarks and Clarity, Open Workbench and Project Workbench are trademarks of Niku Corporation in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks, trade names, and/or product names are used solely for the purpose of identification and are the property of their respective owners.