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Alcan Composites USA Selects Esker Fax Services for SAP® Applications to Reduce Carbon Footprint

Leading global multi material company sets industry standard in fulfilling green initiative by automating the delivery of invoices to its customers

Madison, WI - June 30, 2008

Esker, the leader in document process automation solutions, announced today that Alcan Composites USA, a member of a leading global multi material company for graphic display panels and aluminum composite building cladding, has implemented Esker Fax Services for SAP Applications to help the company achieve its company-wide sustainability mandate.

Manually processing about 75,000 sheets of paper invoices per year, Alcan Composites USA selected Esker to completely eliminate the use of paper in the back office. Most businesses seek automatic faxing when integrating Esker Fax Services for SAP Applications – but with Alcan, because of limitations with its SAP solution, the technology was customized and configured for automatic emailing. The result was an email service fully integrated with its SAP application – without adding hardware or software.

With Esker, Alcan Composites USA no longer manually sends paper invoices. Instead, all invoicing documents are processed electronically. Customers that previously received documents from Alcan Composites USA via postal mail or fax are now accepting that information via email.

The company has experienced reduced costs because it no longer buys paper and the other materials associated with printing, postal mail delivery, or staff overtime for working extra hours to print, stuff, and address invoices for postal mail delivery. After a calculation of the cost before the Esker service – factoring labor, paper, envelope and postage cost – compared with the cost of using the Esker service and their SAP solution together, Alcan Composites USA reports a conservative annual savings of $13,500.

Esker recently launched GreenerDocs.com, an online web portal providing valuable statistics about paper consumption and tips for how to reduce that amount of paper used, and misused, for business communications. The site targets organizations seeking ways to adopt socially responsible, green-focused initiatives. The site also builds upon the Esker Quit Paper campaign, a campaign aimed at challenging today’s enterprises to reduce the unnecessary use of paper. Esker’s mission is to demonstrate that by quitting the paper addiction, companies will help the environment and lower operational costs, improve performance in the order-to-cash and procure-to-pay cycles, and develop stronger relationships with customers and suppliers.

Executive quote

“Many companies are reducing energy consumption and using recyclable materials for their products, but there is no way they can accurately call themselves a green company without doing something to change the amount of paper used internally,” said Renee Thomas, Director of Field Marketing, Esker. “Esker is committed to helping companies achieve its sustainability initiatives because, as seen with Alcan Composites USA, the outcome not only benefits the environment but also the company’s bottom line.”

Customer quote

“We provide it electronically because there is a trend to store documents digitally,” said Mike McKitrick, Product Manager, Alcan Composites USA. “If companies don’t utilize digital transmission and storage of documents, they should. Digital storage is very inexpensive when compared to fax, copying, printing, file cabinets, etc.”

“We’ve worked very hard to roll out this sustainability mandate across all departments of our company and hope that when people understand the progress we’ve made in reducing our carbon footprint, they will be inspired to do the same,” said Kirk Jones, Director of IT and Customer Service for Alcan Composites USA, Inc. “Working with Esker, we’ve established a set of best practices for internal green efficiency and know that looking ahead we will discover more ways to reduce our footprint even more through the elimination of paper. Utilizing the Esker service allows Alcan Composites USA to increase the speed at which we do business.”

About the company

About Alcan Composites USA:

Alcan Composites, a part of Rio Tinto Alcan Engineered Products employs 2700 persons in 22 locations in Europe, the Americas and Asia. It is active in manufacturing and commercializing lightweight multi material solutions for architecture, visual communication, transportation, industrial and wind energy markets.

Alcan Composites USA products are used for the signs in large store displays in retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Target. In addition, its solutions were used to create the Architectural/Building Cladding applications like the Epcot Center geodesic dome in Florida and the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Arkansas.

Alcan Composites USA is the inventor of reputable brands such as FOME-COR®, SINTRA®, GATORFOAM®, and ALUCOBOND®. Alcan has been featured on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index consecutively since 2003.


About Esker:

Esker is a recognized leader in helping organizations eliminate manual processes, gain process visibility and control, and reduce the use of paper by automating the flow of documents into, within and out of the organization. With patented document delivery automation software and hosted document delivery services, Esker offers a total solution to automate every phase and every type of business information exchange. Customers achieve significant and immediate operational efficiencies, cost savings and measurable ROI in as little as three to six months. Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally with more than 80,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide. Esker has global headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.esker.com.

Contact details

Corporate Contact:

Renee Thomas, Esker, Inc.

608.828.6140

renee.thomas@esker.com


Investor Relations Contact:

Emmanuel Olivier, Esker S.A.

33 (0)4 72 83 46 46

olivier@esker.fr


Technorati tags: Esker | Alcan Composites | Document Delivery | SAP | Paper Consumption | Document Process Automation |

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