Harte-Hanks Named Outscourcing Management 'Best Practice Award' Winner

October 18, 2005; 11:03 AM

EAST BRIDGEWATER, MA – October 18, 2005 – Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE:HHS), a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company, reports that it is a First-Place winner in the Outsourcing Management for Technology Manager's Forum 2005 Best Practice Awards.  The company was joined in the honor by its client J. & W. Seligman & Co., a New York-based investment manager and advisor, and two other Seligman partners, Globix and BitLathe.

The award first was announced October 17 by Technology Managers Forum, the organizers of Enterprise Forum 2005, a day-long conference in New York City.  In their tenth year, the Best Practice Awards honor exceptional technology applications in a variety of categories, the Seligman honor happening in the "Outsourcing Management" category.

According to the award entry, Harte-Hanks, Globix and BitLathe, working with a sponsor in J. & W. Seligman & Co., created a new Web-based online broker literature ordering application to replace an existing system to support more than 2,500 financial advisors and internal Seligman staff.  In addition to the basic function of literature fulfillment, the solution – developed in four months' time in late 2004 – engages clients and prospects to continue interactions with the investment firm by using automated e-mails and personalized packing slips that alert individual recipients to other content that may be of interest.   The interactions then are captured and stored in Seligman's sales system for use in a weekly sales and prospecting report – enabling "transactional marketing" measurement and best practice.

"This collaboration has created wins across the board, and has met some demanding criteria," said William Benz, vice president, sales and marketing systems, J. & W. Seligman & Co.  "We have established relationships with each of the partners on the project, each of them we see as having 'best of breed' capabilities in their respective fields, financial stability, and know well our culture.  The solution also captured all the functionality of the system it replaced, but delivered new enhancements to add value and speed the sales cycle."

According to Benz, the implementation has delivered cost savings in some components, such as in the use of personalized e-mail, but its greatest value is that the solution has documented a link between request of collateral on particular products, and future sales of those products.  "Prior to this transactional messaging program and fulfillment and sales system link, such an indicator had been unproven," Benz said.  "Outsourcing – partner sourcing as we see it – works, because of our active management of the process and the use of Harte-Hanks, Globix and BitLathe working together with us."

"At the end of each day, it is our client that challenges us and allows innovation to happen," said Jim Davis, corporate officer and senior vice president, Harte-Hanks.  "We are proud to share in this award, and thank Seligman and its partners for the opportunity to perform at such a high level."

Judging for Outsourcing Management portion of the 2005 Best Practice Awards were:  Gregory Friel, director, Deutsche Bank; Sharon Kaufman, assistant vice president, service provider oversight, The Bank of New York; Maria Suarez, assistant vice president, security assurance, Empire BlueCross BlueShield; and Stephen Forte, chief technology officer, Corzen.

"In sharing these case studies, these winners provide guidance to other businesses in how technologies are applied in innovative ways to benefit mid-size to larger enterprises," said Priscilla Tate, executive director, Technology Managers Forum.  "Year after year, competition is tight for these awards, and our judges – all of whom are IT managers with strict standards for best practices – know a superior project when they see it and take their judging mandate seriously."

About Harte-Hanks

Harte-Hanks, Inc., San Antonio, TX, is a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to a wide range of local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers.  Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing improves the return on its clients' marketing investment with a range of services organized around five solution points: Construct and update the database -- Access the data -- Analyze the data -- Apply the knowledge -- Execute the programs.  Expert at each element within this process, Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing is highly skilled at tailoring solutions for each of the vertical markets it serves.  Harte-Hanks Shoppers is North America's largest owner, operator and distributor of shopper publications, with shoppers that are zoned into more than 1000 separate editions with circulation of 12 million in California and Florida each week. Visit the Harte-Hanks Web site at http://www.harte-hanks.com  or call (800) 456-9748.