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PROSPECTUS SUMMARY
This summary highlights selected information contained elsewhere in this
prospectus. This summary does not contain all of the information that you should
consider before investing in our common stock. You should read the entire
prospectus carefully, including the information under "Risk Factors" beginning
on page 5 and the financial statements beginning on page F-1, before making an
investment decision.
OUR BUSINESS
We are an international provider of transaction management services for
both traditional commerce and electronic commerce, or e-commerce, companies. We
provide a broad range of services, including order management, customer care
services, billing services, information management and distribution services. We
offer our services as an integrated solution, which enables our clients to
outsource their transaction management needs to a single source and to focus on
their core competencies. We currently provide transaction management services to
over 30 clients that operate in a range of markets, including apparel, computer
products, printers, sporting goods and consumer electronics, among others.
During fiscal year 1999, IBM was our largest client, and, within the past twelve
months, we have signed contracts with over 10 new clients, including
Hewlett-Packard, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Nokia, Global Sports Interactive
and ISA International plc. These new clients do not currently represent a
significant percentage of our revenue.
As the Internet has become an increasingly important communications medium,
merchants and consumers have embraced using the Internet to buy and sell goods
and services. International Data Corporation, or IDC, currently forecasts that
the actual number of Web buyers worldwide will expand from nearly 31 million in
1998 to more than 182 million in 2003 and that the amount of worldwide commerce
conducted over the Internet will increase from approximately $50 billion in 1998
to approximately $1.3 trillion in 2003. To succeed on-line, a merchant must
attract customers to its Web site and provide an appealing and easy to use
environment that encourages customers to place an order. Once the customer
places an order, the merchant must then process the order by executing numerous
transactions, such as confirming product availability, authorizing a credit card
purchase, calculating sales tax, fulfilling the order and, when necessary,
processing returns. These "behind the scenes" activities are critical to
complete the entire transaction.
While early adopters of e-commerce business models often developed their
own transaction management systems, today many on-line merchants seek to
outsource their transaction management needs to third parties. We believe that
we are strategically positioned to benefit from the growing use and acceptance
of e-commerce.
We offer a comprehensive and integrated set of transaction management
services, including:
- order management, including handling the complete shopping check-out
process and on-line order management;
- customer care services, including customer care centers integrating
voice, e-mail, data and Internet chat communications;
- billing services, including secure on-line credit card processing,
invoicing, credit management and collection;
- information management, including real-time data interfaces, data
exchange services and data mining; and
- distribution services, including inventory management, product
warehousing, order picking and packing, transportation management and
product return administration.
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