CHICAGO -- A newly rebranded IRI has forged a deal with 7-Eleven Inc. for the launch of the 7-Exchange Next Generation solution. This new solution will help ensure 7-Eleven and subscribing manufacturer partners work from a "single version of the truth" for such things as identical basket-level transaction data, promotion optimization, trip-mission segments, store segmentation, same-store and time-of-day information.
SymphonyIRI Group Inc. announced Tuesday during the opening day of the company's 2013 Summit conference that it is embracing its founding name of Information Resources Inc. and rebranding as IRI.
Its new "Growth Delivered" business strategy concentrates on six integrated disciplines:
- Robust operating performance: Delivering enhanced operating excellence across all core processes.
- Forward-looking insights: Leveraging forward-looking insights into actionable advice to deliver improved business performance.
- Revenue growth acceleration: Driving revenue growth acceleration for CPG manufacturers and retailers across sales and marketing.
- Authority on big data: Applying knowledge and experience with "big data" to achieve new levels of innovation and foresight.
- People and client development: Helping empower employees and clients to grow to their fullest potential.
- Global expansion: Providing robust, integrated global data coverage and analytical capabilities.
"IRI has a rich heritage of innovation and going beyond the data, leveraging advanced analytics and enabling technologies to help our clients excel and win," Andrew Appel, IRI's president and CEO, said from Las Vegas. "We have the leadership, the people, the unique assets and the distinctive capabilities to deliver on our new strategy and make a real difference for clients. We're taking the best of what we've been boldly forward."
Added Appel, "Our rebranding signifies our promise to continue providing ingenious solutions and capabilities for our clients to enable growth in a highly fragmented, competitive and complex market. We are well positioned to be the catalyst that enables CPG and retail companies to take advantage of new opportunities."
7-Eleven Deal
The new deal with Dallas-based 7-Eleven "offers the manufacturer a more robust way to partner with 7-Eleven on their category management processes," said Brad Shelton, executive vice president of retail client solutions for IRI. "The new 7-Exchange will provide detailed insights into the purchase patterns of almost 7 million guests who visit 7-Eleven in a typical day."
This approach will facilitate collaboration and accelerate return on investment for joint activities.
With 7-Exchange Next Generation, 7-Eleven is the first convenience retailer to share basket-level transaction data with its partners through this program to accelerate innovative and more customer-focused products and merchandising approaches. The 7-Exchange Next Generation solution will include standardized category management workflows to encourage stronger alignment between all of 7-Eleven's external manufacturer-partner activities and internal category management processes, including analysis, execution and measurement of key category sales information.
"The 7-Exchange Next Generation solution and its brand-affinity insights provide the detailed data manufacturers and 7-Eleven need to more effectively identify product assortment and merchandising opportunities, design more effective promotional strategies and identify high- value, cross-merchandising opportunities," said Jim Hendrickson, 7-Eleven's manager of market research and consumer insights. "This unprecedented access to precise basket-level data gives our manufacturer partners the improved insights they need to thrive at 7-Eleven."
Other key benefits of the 7-Exchange Next Generation service include:
*Category management process workflows: The 7-Exchange features standard report templates and workflows to facilitate manufacturer collaboration with 7-Eleven's category managers.
*Daypart and conversion analysis: 7-Exchange is powered by time-stamped transaction data for analyzing trends by time of day and day of week. By benchmarking their performance versus category and competing manufacturer performance, decision-makers can identify time periods where they might not be maximizing opportunities.
*Promotion and markdown analysis: The 7-Exchange measures the impact of promotions and markdowns at the most granular level possible. Using this specific, isolated data, 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners can easily identify which promotions and markdowns are working and which are not, and adjust their strategies accordingly to maximize returns.
*Trip mission segmentation: Identifying the links between shopper intent and actual purchase patterns has traditionally presented a challenge for 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners, but the 7-Exchange solution demystifies this correlation by classifying every 7-Eleven transaction into one of 10 trip-mission segments. With this insight, 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners can optimize assortment, promotions and other strategies to entice shoppers from each trip-mission segment.
*Affinity purchase analysis: The 7-Exchange's basket-level transaction data provides previously unavailable product cross-purchase information, giving 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners a higher degree of insight into which products sell best together and how to create highly targeted affinity merchandising and promotional communications and campaigns.
*Results measurement capabilities: 7-Exchange's granular transaction data (UPC, store, basket, timestamp) is updated weekly, giving 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners an unmatched ability to measure the results of all targeted communications promotions and merchandising activities. The new solution's frequent data updates enable 7-Eleven and its manufacturer partners to build, run and measure specific test and control scenarios without the typical delays associated with other similar solutions.
"7-Exchange Next Generation offers IRI clients faster access and more granular insight to 7-Eleven's basket-level transaction information than ever before," said Eric Lang, vice president of Shopper Marketing for Chicago-based IRI. "This access enables a more collaborative, insightful and efficient business strategy and execution process with 7-Eleven's category management team to further grow category and total store sales."
The 7-Exchange is deployed using IRI's Retail Advantage platform, the latest module under the Retail Advantage product portfolio that empowers integrated insights and closed-loop marketing for retailers and their supplier partners. With its transaction-level data, the Retail Advantage platform is a powerful data-analysis tool that delivers improved access to integrated shopper, basket, panel, point of sale (POS) and third-party insights. Additionally, the Advantage platform offers subscribers the flexibility to expand the 7-Exchange service to include "rest of market" and loyalty data.
7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 10,000 stores in North America. Globally, 7-Eleven has appriximately 50,000 stores in 16 countries. During 2011, 7-Eleven stores generated total worldwide sales close to $84.8 billion.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.