The Oracle Retail project is part of JD Sports' larger strategy to create a standard set of best practice planning processes that will support the development and growth of the business. Previously, the retailer was using systems that lacked the scalability and efficiency to manage growing inventory levels and were unable to provide timely insight into how well merchandise was performing. This was having a negative impact on overall profitability and making it difficult for the retailer to maximise gross margin dollars.

"We saw a real opportunity to become highly agile in our responses to customer demands through improved planning and forecasting," said Brian Small, Group Finance Director of the John David Group. "It was important to improve visibility across all channels, so we wanted the ability to plan seasonal stock targets at category level to manage both top-down and bottom-up planning. We wanted to improve sales and profit density in stores through more accurate management of markdowns and reduced stock levels. We quickly identified Oracle Retail as a strategic, scalable planning system which best met our requirements for a quick deployment, delivering rapid value and allowing us to adopt a best practice model for planning that will help us to deliver a consistent high-quality shopping experience to our customers."

JD Sports plans to use a phased approach for rolling out the Oracle Retail applications to its business. In the first phase, the retailer will develop a standard set of best practice planning and forecasting processes based around the Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning application aimed at improving management visibility into information about sales performance. The retailer expects to complete first phase implementation this year and as a result will be able to generate more accurate forecasts of consumer demand in order to make strategic decisions around what to buy.

The second phase of the project, scheduled for early 2008, will deliver the implementation of Oracle Retail Category Management to enable JD Sports to implement best practice around range and assortment planning. More effective assortment planning should contribute to a reduction in stock levels and markdowns, further maximising profits.

Small continued, "We are extremely focused on implementing best practices wherever possible. Oracle Retail's credentials with the likes of Tesco and the John Lewis Partnership clearly demonstrate how JD Sports can benefit from their experience. In addition, we have been working with a training partner to help ensure that our staff is maximising the full value of our investment from the outset."

"We are committed to supporting JD Sports in its aim to drive business forward and deliver a consistent, high-level shopping experience to its customers," said Tarik Taman, Vice President of EMEA, Oracle Retail. "Retailers are continuing to become more aware of the impact that IT systems can have on the bottom line and how implementing strategic processes can drive corporate growth and build competitive advantage."

About Oracle Retail
Oracle is the number one provider of innovative and comprehensive industry software solutions for retailers - enabling organizations to serve their customers better by applying insight into daily business decisions for more profitable results. With software that provides supply chain, operations, merchandising, store systems, optimization and information technology solutions, Oracle partners with the world's leading retail companies, including 17 of the top 20 retailers worldwide, to transform the economics of their businesses.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com