EMNS Survives The Market and Looks To Grow

June 17, 2002

BY DARCY EVON SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

EMNS has seen a lot of ups and downs in the new economy, but as a survivor of the tech wreck and Lucent Technologies' meltdown, it now aims to get on track to become the leading provider of supplier chain quality-management software.

The Oak Brook-based company started within AT&T about 12 years ago, according to founder Bill Benda. Benda's effort took shape as a "Web hosting solutions provider," said Senior Vice President Kurt Nusbaum, and then looked at markets where the company could compete as a stand-alone entity. It turned out that a service for medical imaging, storage and retrieval was a prime market; Lucent (which split off from AT&T) spun out Benda's group in 2000 to merge with Health Center Internet Services as its hosting component. Everyone had their eye on an IPO, but then the market died.

"We then bought ourselves back from Health Center with an ulterior motive," Benda said. "We had developed a supply chain product for Goodyear that no one [in the health services company] wanted to pursue because it wasn't sexy. But Kurt convinced me that it could be commercialized."

Turns out to have been a good move. EMNS renewed its contract with Goodyear for five years, and still does some hosting for Lucent and other clients, ringing up more than $1 million a year in revenues. With some other customers in the pipeline, EMNS is looking for investment capital to go full speed ahead in the automotive supply chain arena and potentially other market verticals.

"Software systems and revenues are [in vogue] again," Benda quipped. "We think we have finally figured out a model that will work in the long haul."