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Manugistics names new chief executive

The struggling supply chain software maker names a former managing partner at Andersen Consulting to take over as head of the company.

Kim Girard
Kim Girard has written about business and technology for more than a decade, as an editor at CNET News.com, senior writer at Business 2.0 magazine and online writer at Red Herring. As a freelancer, she's written for publications including Fast Company, CIO and Berkeley's Haas School of Business. She also assisted Business Week's Peter Burrows with his 2003 book Backfire, which covered the travails of controversial Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. An avid cook, she's blogged about the joy of cheap wine and thinks about food most days in ways some find obsessive.
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Kim Girard
Supply chain software maker Manugistics today named a former managing partner at Andersen Consulting to take over as head of the company.

Rockville, Maryland-based Manugistics appointed Gregory Owens, 39, as president and chief executive officer. Owens replaces William Gibson, who will remain chairman.

Owens, 39, was the former head of Andersen's global supply chain management unit, the world's largest supply chain consulting firm with annual revenues of more than $1.4 billion.

Manugistics could such a boost, as its business is trailing that of market leader i2 Technologies. Manugistics this month reported a fourth quarter loss of $19.3 million and a net loss for the year of $54.1 million.

The company has been hard hit over the past year by both stiff market competition and internal sales execution problems. Yet Owens, in a statement issued today, said he hoped to "put Manugistics' past challenges behind us and establish the company as the leader in the supply chain management software market."

Although Manugistics was in possible merger talks last December, the company changed its mind in January, announcing instead that it would hire a new CEO and cut its workforce by 30 percent.