KUDU RESTAURANTS AIM FOR GLOBAL EXPANSION WITH ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE DEPLOYMENT Inventory, Purchasing, HR and Financials for More than 120 Outlets Managed Centrally Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, January 3, 2005 -- Oracle Corporation, the world's largest enterprise software company, today announced that Kudu, a prominent Saudi-based restaurant chain, is deploying Oracle E-Business Suite as part of its bid for regional and global expansion. The sandwich purveyor, which has outlets around the GCC, is utilizing Oracle software to centrally manage the purchasing, inventory, payroll, and other key financial functions for its more than 120 restaurants. To achieve the objective of entering new markets throughout the Middle East and beyond, Kudu's management determined that the company needed to boost the overall productivity of its operations, and improve manageability of its franchises by centralizing and automating the financial and human resources processes. Since deploying Oracle Financials and Oracle Human Resources Management System (HRMS), Kudu has launched in Kuwait and is eyeing franchises in a number of other countries in the Arab world. "Given the Middle East's unique demographic, with more than half of the regional population under the age of 30, the fast food business is incredibly competitive. To increase the agility of our operation and Kudu's ability to adapt to changing market conditions, we required a single financial view across all of our outlets," commented Mr. Abdulmohsen AI Yahya, C.E.O., Kudu Corporation. "Our brand promise to the regional market is to satisfy all five senses, which Kudu achieves through delivering incredibly fresh, custom-made sandwiches. To deliver this level of food quality, we're now relying on Oracle's procurement, order management, and inventory solutions to ensure that we always have the ingredients on hand that our customers want while maintaining lower overheads," AI Yahya added. "Kudu is testament to the powerful synergy of entrepreneurship, dedication and vision joining forces to create a unique corporation. Founded on April 16th 1988 in Riyadh, Kudu has grown steadily into the constellation of 120 restaurants, we here at Kudu Corp. believe that it was the right time to change, it is the time to depend on Oracle E-Business Suite, "commented Eng. Samer N. Obaid, Kudu's I. T. Manager. Automating Human Resources Functions In addition to centralizing its asset management and financial processes, Kudu's new Oracle implementation also enables the company to automate a number of its vital human resources functions. Payroll and expenses for employees based all over the region are now managed online, reducing paperwork and manual administration. With a continually updated database of employee competencies, Kudu's management can now better assess and leverage the skill base among staff to open new restaurants and deliver new products to specific markets more quickly. "In this service-based sector, our new approach to human resources, based on Oracle solutions, ensures that Kudu's employees receive the training and compensation they need to keep the company competitive. Automating the HR function has also enabled Kudu to reduce operational expenses by cutting down on paper-based, manual processes,” Obaid added. Automating the entire Supply Chain Processes Kudu utilizes cross modular functionalities among several Oracle E-Business Suite modules such as Procurement, Order Management, Shipping and Inventory which enable the company to automate the whole material replenishment cycle in more than 120 outlets, warehouses, production plants and bakeries. With its integrated and efficient architecture, Oracle E-Business Suite processes more than 2000 material requisition lines on a daily basis. This high degree of automation enabled Kudu not only to reduce its internal lead-time, but also to eliminate a vast amount of redundant and non-value add activities, since warehouse keepers and production managers need only to transact against a pre-booked and allocated internal orders. Kudu Utilizes Oracle E-Business Suite Open Architecture to Integrate with POS Oracle E-Business Suite at Kudu integrates smoothly with the points of sale system, which guarantees a seamless inbound/outbound flow of information between Oracle Applications and the POS system. Oracle Applications processes hundreds of thousands of sales order lines on a daily basis enabling Kudu's management to invest time in analyzing information rather than wasting time collecting data. Kudu is able to analyze its sales revenue by outlet, product, cost type or order mode on any specific day. With the deployment of Oracle E-Business Suite, Kudu can get immediate answers to such question like, What was the gross profit on chicken sandwiches served as take away sold at a specific outlet yesterday? Saudi-based Oracle partner Integrated Data Solutions (IDS) managed Kudu's Oracle E-Business Suite implementation. About Oracle Oracle Corporation is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle in the Middle East, please visit our web site at www.oracle.com/me or contact Aly Rifaah on +9714 390 9000. ###