SymphonyIRI Group
SymphonyIRI Group (formerly Information Resources, Inc.) is a market research company which provides clients with consumer, shopper, and retail market intelligence and analysis focused on the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. SymphonyIRI’s clients include 95 percent of the Fortune Global 500 CPG, retail and healthcare companies.[2] The firm operates in 58 countries through stand-alone operations, wholly owned subsidiaries, partnerships and alliances. SymphonyIRI offers products and services in four areas:
- Market Content – Retail tracking data, convenience store tracking data and consumer panel-based data
- Predictive Analytics – Decomposition of the drivers of current business trends and simulation of the effects of changes on future brand plans.[3]
- Enterprise Performance Management Software – Tools to support faster analysis of market content
- Professional Services / Consulting – Vertical domain experience and customized products and services for multiple industry verticals, including health care and wellness, center store, confections, beer, wine and spirits, bakery and dairy.[4] SymphonyIRI experts support analysis, insight creation, and training.
Top 10 of the Market Research Sector 2009
| Rank |
Company |
Sales in 2009
(million USD) |
Growth in % |
| 1 |
Nielsen Company |
&100000000000050000000005,000.0 |
2.6 |
| 2 |
Kantar Group |
&100000000000020000000002,000.0 |
2.5 |
| 3 |
IMS Health Inc. |
&100000000000019585999991,958.6 |
8.9 |
| 4 |
GfK AG |
&100000000000013972999991,397.3 |
5.4 |
| 5 |
Ipsos |
&100000000000010770000001,077.0 |
6.5 |
| 6 |
Synovate |
&10000000000000739600000739.6 |
9.5 |
| 7 |
SymphonyIRI Group |
&10000000000000665000000665.0 |
6.6 |
| 8 |
Westat |
&10000000000000425800000425.8 |
0.8 |
| 9 |
Arbitron |
&10000000000000400000000400.0 |
5.9 |
History
SymphonyIRI was formerly named as Information Resources, Inc. (“IRI”) in Chicago in 1979[5] with the introduction of the BehaviorScan service, a patented in-market testing service that quantifies the ROI of a new TV advertising program. The brainchild of John Malec and Gerry Eskin, this service invisibly delivers different commercials to distinct household groups within the same city to quantify the advertising impact on household panelists’ purchasing behavior. IRI formally started its first BehaviorScan test one year later in 1980 and BehaviorScan remains the nation’s only within-market “split cable” targetable TV system for testing new creative and alternative media plans. SymphonyIRI became a public company in 1983.[6] By 1993 Fortune Magazine had named IRI a “company to watch” for expanding into two of its biggest markets: analyzing nationwide scanner data on consumer products and producing computer software. At that time slightly more than half SymphonyIRI's revenues came from Infoscan, its marketing data service.[7] Shortly thereafter in 1995, SymphonyIRI rolled out its ScanKey panel service, in which consumers nationwide could scan the barcode of their
CPG product purchases at home to enable purchase tracking by various household demographics. In late 2003, IRI was acquired by Symphony Technology Group, run by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani.[8] The new leadership led to a focus on SymphonyIRI’s predictive analytic applications. Subsequently in 2007, SymphonyIRI unveiled SymphonyIRI Liquid Data (ILD), a new end-to-end information management and insights platform. SymphonyIRI was named fifth in the 2008 Honomichl Top 50 Business Report of the U.S. Marketing Research Industry.[9]
On June 1, 2011, SymphonyIRI announced that an affiliate of New Mountain Capital LLC completed a majority investment in the company. This New York-based firm manages private and public funds with more than $9 billion in aggregate capital commitments as of June 1, 2011, with a focus on growth equity investing and business building. New Mountain is now the majority shareholder in SymphonyIRI. Symphony Technology Group, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is maintaining a significant equity position in the company. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.[10]
Products and Publications
- Infoscan - Each week several thousand grocery, drug, and department stores deliver the product data collected by their scanners. SymphonyIRI sorts, analyzes, and verifies product price and volume, and then delivers final Infoscan sales information to its customers via tape, disk, or on-line service.[7]
- Consumer Network - This consumer panel provides a view into consumer behavior by various household demographic groups. This platform is supplemented by a series of integrated insights, shopper and specialty panels, which are enabled through a new portable, personal collection device.[11]
- SymphonyIRI Liquid Data (ILD) – Developed in collaboration with IBM, ILD provides immediate access to strategic information and insights. The Liquid Data platform offers data management capabilities driven through a combination of IBM and SymphonyIRI hardware, software, patented algorithms, industry models, data integration and supporting applications that are offered as a hosted service or as a separate infrastructure within the customer’s legacy data environment. The capability platform holds data in a flat or unstructured universe of points and leverages predictive automated analytics to generate information and insights to support specific decisions in minutes.[12]
- Thought Leadership – SymphonyIRI regularly releases a number of reports for both wide release and sale, including the monthly Times & Trends series, annual New Product Pacesetters report, and the Point of View series. These publications highlight new developments and critical events across all major CPG categories and channels, identify key trends and opportunities in the CPG industry, and include suggested strategies for marketers to harness these to their advantage.[13] Antecedent, Find/SVP - Packaged Facts and custom Research.
References
- ^ "Information Resources New CEO" (Press release). Brandon Glenn. 25 October 2007. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=26893&seenIt=1.
- ^ About Information Resources, Inc.
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, Automated, Predictive Analytic Insights page H22., 2008.
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, Industry Vertical Services page H22., 2008.
- ^ Information Resources, Inc.
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, IRI page H20., 2008.
- ^ a b Fortune
- ^ {{cite press release | publisher = Gingko Acquisition Corp. | date = 3 November 2003 | title = Gingko Acquisition Corp. Successfully Closes Tender Offer for Information Resources; Gingko Acquisition Corp. Also Announces Subsequent Offering Period | url = http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-03-2003/0002049657&EDATE=}}
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, page H20., 2008.
- ^ Penny PayDay, New Mountain Capital Completes Majority Investment in SymphonyIRI Group, 2011.
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, Comprehensive Market Content page H20., 2008.
- ^ Honomichl Top 50 Report, Decision Support Services page H22., 2008.
- ^ Information Resources, Inc. Insights
External links