DAYTON, Ohio--Sept. 22, 2003-- Standard Register announced today that it has been named to CMP Media LLC's InformationWeek 500, a prestigious listing of the most innovative users of information technology in the United States. For 15 years, the InformationWeek 500 has tracked organizations' information technology (IT) agendas, providing a unique opportunity to understand and examine their business practices across core areas of operations. Companies named to this list demonstrate a pattern of technological, procedural and organizational innovation. Standard Register was ranked No. 43 in this year's list, up from 156 last year. Other companies that made the list this year include Owens & Minor Inc. (ranked No. 1), General Motors Corp. (12), FedEx Corp. (17), Dell Inc. (35) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (48). "Our move up on the list is recognition of our continued progress as an information solutions company," said Joseph Morgan, Standard Register's chief technology officer. "Our advancing technology helps us better serve our customers, helping them more effectively capture, manage and use information to improve their business results." America's most innovative companies are devoting more dollars to technology initiatives this year. "On average, the InformationWeek 500 will invest 3.7 percent of their annual revenue on technology for an average cash layout of $353 million in 2003," said Rusty Weston, editor of InformationWeek Research. "This marks an upswing in technology investment compared to a year ago when the typical InformationWeek 500 company spent $320 million on IT." IT dollars are used primarily to develop, foster and improve processes that promote information sharing across and beyond the enterprise. Regulatory compliance is also prompting new IT spending in many sectors tracked by InformationWeek. Web-based architecture, productivity-centric tools and products, and IT infrastructure that promotes real-time data transmissions are among the key technology initiatives sought by this year's InformationWeek 500. Standard Register has been making significant investments in technology, improving its technological capabilities through both internal IT developments and the acquisition of technology companies. "In the past year, Standard Register has deployed new technologies both internally and for our customers to further increase efficiency and leverage the power of information. We rolled out new Standard Register software to help customers increase their marketing effectiveness while safeguarding their brand and reducing costs. We developed a data-analysis tool to determine lowest-cost production methodologies. And we deployed new order-management software for our variable printing and fulfillment operations to improve productivity and tracking and make us even easier to do business with," said Morgan. "Acquisitions we've made have provided us additional software and Web solutions as well as state-of-the-art print-on-demand operations and new consulting services. In addition, we have begun migrating customers to a new version of our print-management portal, SMARTworks 6.0, which improves workflow, expenditure tracking and decision making with real-time data and the ability to handle multiple suppliers with an open platform. "Many of Standard Register's technology initiatives are tied to operational excellence goals. We feel Six Sigma methodologies and information technology go hand in hand. We combine the two to achieve cost and process improvements, as well as to share best practices among operations." "The InformationWeek 500 are a major force in the U.S. economy," said Stephanie Stahl, editor of InformationWeek. "Collectively, this year's 500 businesses will spend nearly $177 billion on technology tools, products, and services. We expect this commitment to continue into 2004 when we estimate that the InformationWeek 500 will spend $185 billion to establish and move technology initiatives forward." The InformationWeek 500 is the most detailed source of industry-specific IT budget data. The research project gathered in-depth information directly from companies about how they approach and prioritize their IT investments. The research identified and ranked the companies following an extensive online and phone study.