Accenture and Avasta Team to Provide Outsourced Information Technology to Golden State Vintners
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.; March 5, 2002 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Avasta™ today announced that Golden State Vintners (NASDAQ: VINT), a business-to-business supplier of wines and winemaking services, has chosen these companies to outsource their information technology (IT) capabilities, which includes IT staffing, hardware and software maintenance, and a call center to support web site and business applications. Through adoption of this outsourcing model, Golden State Vintners will be able to maintain their focus on providing winemaking services, such as wine processing, bottling and warehousing. Accenture and Avasta will team to deliver IT support for Golden State Vintner’s entire enterprise, aimed at increasing access to skilled personnel, reducing internal IT staffing and improving overall service.
Accenture’s professionals will provide application development and information technology support services for Golden State Vintners’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) and eCommerce applications. Avasta manages and monitors the applications through Prasma™, its proprietary application management platform and provides 24x7 application technical support through its Application Operations Center.
“Accenture’s deep technology skills and experience in business application outsourcing, coupled with Avasta’s strong applications operations technology is exactly what we need to reap continuous IT benefits without distracting us from revenue generation and corporate growth,” said John Kelleher, chief financial officer of Golden State Vintners.
“A number of companies can benefit from outsourcing infrastructure operations and application management services because it allows them to focus on their core business but still reap the benefits of a high-quality IT staff,” said Alan Feldmann, partner, Accenture Consumer Goods & Services industry group. “We are teaming with Avasta to offer Golden State Vintners a way to cost-effectively integrate and run business applications in a reliable, scalable and secure environment.”
Accenture and Avasta recently formed a marketing alliance in order to combine Accenture’s experience in business applications support, ERP software and deep technology skills with Avasta’s technology and support for applications operations management.
“This alliance with Accenture expands our ability to provide comprehensive services to customers like Golden State Vintners who are looking for maximum IT efficiency in these competitive times,” said Thomas Engdahl, president and chief executive officer of Avasta. “Working together, we are able to address the complete application lifecycle – from integration through day-to-day IT operations management – required to support mission-critical applications.”
Avasta’s proprietary application management platform, Prasma™ automates enterprise application management and enables them to provide flexible, scalable and cost-efficient services to customers either through the customer’s own infrastructure, RemoteServ™, or through a hosted environment, FullServ™.
About Accenture
Accenture is the world’s leading management and technology services organization. Through its network of businesses approach -- in which the company enhances its consulting and outsourcing expertise through alliances, affiliated companies and other capabilities -- Accenture delivers innovations that help clients across all industries quickly realize their visions. With more than 75,000 people in 47 countries, the company generated net revenues of $11.44 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2001. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
About Avasta
Avasta manages enterprise applications through proactive technology and services. By embedding IT best practices into an automated application management platform, Avasta relieves customers of day-to-day application operations burdens. Avasta provides 24x7 application monitoring, management and maintenance, so customers can focus on building their businesses. The company is based in San Francisco and has secured financing from American Express, Alliance Capital, Bayview Partners, CommVest LLC, Convergence Partners, Mentmore Holdings, Sand Hill Capital, Robertson Stephens and ThomVest Holdings. Customers include MarketFirst, Portera and Toshiba America. Please call 415-956-8000.
About Golden State Vintners
Golden State Vintners (GSV) is the leader in premium outsourcing solutions for the global wine industry. Leveraging its vertically integrated vineyard, winery, and bottling assets, GSV provides a broad array of contract production services to meet customers’ business needs. From grape supply through wine processing to bottling, GSV is the preferred outsourcing partner for many of the world’s leading beverage companies and retailers. Headquartered in Napa, California, GSV is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange (symbol VINT).
Avasta, the Avasta logo, Prasma, FullServ and RemoteServ are trademarks of Avasta. All other company or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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Maria Piccininni
+ (415) 901 6521
Caitlin Storhaug
+1 (415) 537 5458