CHICAGO - February 28, 2005 - Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), the leading global provider of enterprise market information solutions for the CPG, Retail, and Healthcare industries continues its focus on delivering superior data access and visualization solutions that increase speed to insight through its Plus Suite™ analytics software.
IRI’s exclusive Plus Suite dramatically increases productivity. The solutions provide powerful, yet easy-to-use analytics capabilities using the popular Microsoft® Excel® and Microsoft® PowerPoint® applications, enabling clients to easily access, visualize, and present valuable and relevant marketplace information throughout their organizations.
IRI’s Plus Suite eliminates the need for time-intensive manual reporting and instead helps clients quickly turn raw market data into presentable business insights that can be used across multiple departments to improve bottom line results. Leveraging the latest access and database processing technologies, IRI’s Plus Suite updates databases five times faster than preexisting software tools, with features and functionality previously unavailable in any tool in the marketplace today.
Plus Suite provides unparalleled flexibility in creating, editing and updating Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, so clients can spend more time implementing and selling rather than sifting through mountains of data. The industry-leading tool allows clients to drill dynamically through multiple databases, transforming complex data sets in to easy to understand reports and presentations.
IRI's Plus Suite contains two unique software solutions - XLeratePlus™ and PowerPlus™. XLeratePlus is a powerful Microsoft Excel add-in tool that allows users to rapidly create detailed financially-focused market content reports to track brand, category, and competitive performance. PowerPlus, a Microsoft PowerPoint add-in tool, extends the power of the IRI data assembled in XLeratePlus by automatically linking to and showcasing data in a variety of pre-formatted Microsoft charts directly within PowerPoint, streamlining the normally laborious process of preparing client-ready presentations.
Since introducing the Plus Suite, many manufacturers and retailers have cited the Plus Suite package as one of their key reasons for selecting IRI.
“The ability to easily manipulate and present marketplace data is essential,” said Donna Hensel, Business Analyst at Boehringer Ingelheim Consumer Healthcare. “We are able to quickly and easily work from an accurate view of our key sales trends using software that we are already very accustomed to using. The Plus Suite has saved us hours in productivity."
“The ability to generate a comprehensive view of the marketplace with relative ease has proven invaluable to our sales and marketing teams,” said Fred Koberna, Associate Marketing Research Director from Johnson & Johnson. “The XLeratePlus capabilities transform our data into actionable business insights that we’re using every day to stay ahead of our competition.”
IRI’s Plus Suite provides clients with unique benefits including:
• Reduced time and effort in selecting, extracting, and updating critical industry data and business insights
• Ability to leverage existing program expertise of familiar Microsoft interfaces without extensive staff training
• Improved collaboration among key team leaders and decision makers through online report sharing capabilities
• Quickly update and modify large PowerPoint business reviews in seconds, including dynamic changes in which data is displayed on-the-fly
• Easily incorporates other data sources for more comprehensive market perspective
“Competition in the today’s CPG, retail and healthcare environments is intense and our clients require cutting-edge analytics software that will provide them with the information they need to maximize their profits,” said Scott W. Klein, IRI President and CEO. “The analysis capabilities offered by IRI’s one-of-a-kind Plus Suite is just one of the many ways we’re helping our clients more effectively tap into the power of marketplace information to drive fact-based decisions and improve performance.”
For more information about IRI’s Plus Suite solution, visit www.infores.com
About Information Resources, Inc.
Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) is the leading global provider of enterprise market information solutions for the CPG, Retail and Healthcare industries. IRI is the first company to leverage the power of real-time market information, advanced analytic insights, and enterprise performance management technology to improve the profitability and operational effectiveness of the world’s leading CPG, retail and healthcare companies. The Company uniquely provides a total view of the market, enabling maximum business performance throughout the enterprise. IRI's solutions make the consumer-driven, real-time enterprise possible. More information is available at www.infores.com.
Editor’s Note: Microsoft, PowerPoint, and Excel are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.