SAN MATEO, Calif. and LONDON, United Kingdom – M-Factor, Inc. the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade promotions investment management, has been awarded a patent for the core technology underlying their Predictive Analytics Platform from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent covers the M-Factor PrOLAP® Predictive Analytics Server which is a uniquely scalable and adaptable scenario analysis system. This system, allows businesses to use data generated by mathematical models side by side with historical data from a variety of sources to report on the past, present and future in a seamless manner. It allows companies to do sophisticated post-event analysis, what-if analysis and war-gaming at a level of breadth and depth not available before. M-Factor currently offers software applications focused on Marketing Investment Management, Trade Promotion Planning and Pricing based on this technology.

“This patent is at the very core of our Predictive Analytics Platform” said Dirk Beyer, Chief Scientific Officer at M-Factor. “Leading companies are increasingly looking to use Predictive Analytics to improve their business performance. Without a scalable and flexible analytics platform underpinning true enterprise class software many analytics approaches will be doomed to never get past the state of science projects. Through our patented technology we are able to help companies to optimize marketing, trade promotions, and pricing decisions at an enterprise scale while being nimble enough to adapt to a changing market place, new marketing vehicles, and new business challenges fast enough to deliver significant business results.”

M-Factor has previously been awarded a patent on tools and methods for building and updating models that forecast consumer demand. This previously patented technology delivers predictive demand models that accurately reflect current market conditions as the marketing environment changes with an unparalleled level of model quality and flexibility. Two of the key components of the M-Factor Predictive Analytics Platform are now patented, providing M-Factor customers with a true competitive advantage.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade investment management, today announced another new customer. The Dannon Company has selected M-Factor’s software to advance their sales planning and forecasting process.

M-Factor allows companies to allocate their trade promotion budgets efficiently across key accounts, establish account plans, reconcile the plans and integrate the insights with TPM (Trade Promotion Management) systems. Companies can establish baselines, incorporate lift drivers, leverage “what-if” scenario simulation, and provide customer forecasts. M-Factor’s ability to incorporate multiple data sources – including 3^rd party syndicated data, POS data, shipment data, and competitive data – enables its powerful analytics platform to provide the comprehensive insights required to drive decisions to grow The Dannon Company’s business from senior management down to field execution.

“We are delighted that Dannon has chosen M-Factor as they transition to a more agile and data-driven integrated trade promotions process,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor. “The continued ongoing complexity of today’s market dynamics requires that companies have improved insights to be able to make the best decisions. M-Factor is committed to enable Dannon to make timely decisions and forward looking plans to achieve their corporate goals.”

About The Dannon Company, Inc.

The Dannon Company is America’s founding national yogurt company and continually leverages its expertise to develop and market innovative cultured fresh dairy products in the United States. Headquartered in White Plains, NY, Dannon has plants in Minster, OH, Fort Worth, TX, and West Jordan, UT and produces approximately 100 different types of flavors, styles and sizes of cultured fresh dairy products. Dannon is a subsidiary of Danone, one of the world’s leading producers of packaged foods and beverages. Danone’s mission is to bring health through tasty, nutritious and affordable food and beverage products to as many people as possible. Dannon is the top-selling brand of yogurt products worldwide, sold under the names Dannon and Danone.

With a strong commitment to high-quality, wholesome, nutritious and innovative products, The Dannon Company is committed to encouraging healthy eating and healthy living. Danone is a recognized leader for its contributions to nutrition and health and was ranked best in class in a 2008 JPMorgan & Insight Investment study about the response of the world’s largest food companies to obesity and health-related concerns. This commitment is also illustrated through The Dannon Company’s support of the Dannon Institute, an independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting research, education, and communication about the links between nutrition, diet and health. For more information, please visit www.dannon.com.

“CGT congratulates M-Factor for emerging as a company who provides a unique solution for the consumer good industry,” said Kara Romanow, Executive Editor, Consumer Goods Technology. “Given the amount of money that consumer products companies spend on trade promotions they have no choice but to evaluate how to make these investments more effective. We applaud the success that M-Factor has experienced with their customers over the past 18 months and for being recognized by CGT readers in the Readers’ Choice Survey.”

M-Factor allows companies to create forward looking plans to ensure that they invest their money in the most effective trade promotions, allowing them to optimize profit and revenue across their entire portfolio of brands, customers, and geographies. Leveraging M-Factor’s software companies can establish more effective headquarter and account level trade promotion allocation strategies based on predicted business results.

“Providing tangible business value to our customers is our single highest priority so we are very proud to receive a CGT Readers’ Choice award based on input from our customers,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor. “Leading industry analysts report that 74% of planned spending on trade is based on views of historic spending. With Consumer Products companies facing a variety of issues that profoundly impact their trade and pricing activities, executives must be able to respond to these issues - and history is not a sufficient predictor of the future.”

About the CGT Readers’ Choice Awards Process

For the tenth consecutive year, CGT asked its subscribers to identify their most valued and used solution and service providers across multiple categories. Executives from more than 165 consumer goods companies were asked to identify the solution provider they currently use within each category and rate their customer experience. The rating is based on the readers’ experience implementing and using the software and the value the solution brought to their business.

SAN MATEO, Calif. USA and LONDON, United Kingdom – M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade investment management, today announced further expansion into the European region with the appointment of Michael Patterson as Vice President of European Operations.  This announcement underlines M-Factor’s international expansion strategy to meet the growing demand from across the globe for solutions to predict, understand, and optimize marketing plans and trade promotions.

“We are delighted to officially announce the appointment of our first senior executive in Europe.  The European market is a very important component of M-Factor’s overall strategy.  We have been working with several customers across Europe and it is clear that our platform is ideally suited to the diverse nature of international markets. Our customers are able to manage local market dimensions within a consistent and scalable framework” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor.  “Michael’s wealth of experience in sales, business development, and operations makes him the ideal addition to the M-Factor team to build on the success that our multinational customers are already experiencing.”

Michael Patterson is extensively experienced in selling and delivering complex analytical and optimization solutions to many of the world’s top Fortune 1000 organizations.  Michael joins M-Factor from Oracle where he was a key Director for the European region in Oracle’s Global Retail Business Unit.    Prior to Oracle, Mr. Patterson had several software solution delivery roles in Europe including sales, marketing and business development at ProfitLogic, Siebel Systems, and Chordiant/Prime Response.  Prior to entering the software market Michael had been fast-tracked through worldwide and regional commercial marketing, merchandising and sales management roles at one of the top retailers in Europe, Marks and Spencer plc.

“Ocean Spray has been leveraging M-Factor software to evaluate how their marketing investments are performing and to determine the optimal allocation of future marketing investments.  They have established a successful insight based methodology and we are very excited to continue working with them to help grow their overall business,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor.

“M-Factor has helped us to better understand what we’re doing right and how we can further optimize our marketing and trade investments to drive even more incremental profit and volume in the future.” said Larry Martin, VP Marketing at Ocean Spray.

About Ocean Spray

Ocean Spray is an agricultural cooperative owned by more than 600 cranberry growers in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and other parts of Canada as well as more than 50 Florida grapefruit growers. Ocean Spray was formed over 75 years ago by three cranberry growers from Massachusetts and New Jersey. Florida grapefruit growers joined the Cooperative in 1976. Ocean Spray is North America’s leading producer of canned and bottled juices and juice drinks, and has been the best-selling brand name in the canned and bottled juice category since 1981.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – August 12, 2009 – M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade investment management, today announced it has been showcased in the July 2009 AMR Research Report, “Cool Technologies for Improving Consumer Products Value Networks.”

According to the AMR Research report, “We’ve been impressed with M-Factor’s approach to marketing optimization through its predictive analytics software to solve marketing investment decisions, trade spend effectiveness, and portfolio pricing optimization. In an age where pricing management between national brands and private brands has grown in importance, pricing is the next marketing lever that needs to be fully leveraged.”

“This recognition underscores that it is more important than ever for consumer products companies to have real time visibility into the complexities driving consumer demand as well as have the ability to adjust consumer and trade marketing investments to maximize sales, profit and market share,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor.

About AMR Research’s Selection Process

Every year AMR Research shares insights on what they believe are cool technologies for the consumer products industry. To meet the definition of “cool,” the following criteria must be met:

• The technology must serve a defined industry need that’s relevant to the market.
• It’s differentiated.
• It’s mature enough to be supported by industry-specific references.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – August 3, 2009 – M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade investment management for the consumer products sector, today announced that it will partner with Vanguard Strategy.  

Vanguard Strategy, headquartered in London, England is widely recognized as a leading brand strategy consulting firm with a rigorous data-driven approach to understanding and answering the most complex questions that brands face.

“We are excited to announce Vanguard Strategy as a partner.  The combination of their strong presence in the UK and across Europe along with their reputation for consistently pushing the boundaries of conventional wisdom to deliver unparalleled results for their customers makes Vanguard Strategy the ideal partner,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor.  “M-Factor software along with Vanguard Strategy’s proven and unique methodology will unearth the strategic insights for companies to build and sustain competitive advantage.  The joint approach will provide actionable insights on where and how to make trade and marketing investments across a portfolio of products, geographies, and time”.

“With increasing pressure on marketing to drive growth, companies need to better quantify and understand the true return on their marketing investments.  Vanguard Strategy’s approach with M-Factor software will provide new options to help marketers make better decisions,” said Lars Finskud, Director and founder of Vanguard Strategy.  “The partnership will enable clients to be forward looking and make the strategic adjustments to their marketing to stay ahead of the competition”. 

About Vanguard Strategy

Vanguard Strategy is a specialist brand and marketing strategy consulting firm. Vanguard’s fact-based ‘Competing for Choice’ approach enables its clients, typically considered to be at the leading-edge of marketing practices, to push their performance to the next level.  Vanguard integrates three areas of expertise: strategy, advanced intelligence and system dynamics to assist clients with growth strategy. Clients include leading global Consumer, Pharmaceutical and Financial services companies. Please visit www.vanguardstrategy.com for more information.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – July 22, 2009 – M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics software for marketing and trade investment management for the consumer products sector, today announced another new customer.  Nestlé Waters will leverage M-Factor’s software to provide actionable insights to allow them to optimize their trade spend across North America.

“Fluctuating commodity prices impacting the cost of packaging, the impact of private label and the economic climate in general have made it more important than ever that we regularly assess our overall trade strategies,” said Dan Friedrich, VP of Customer Development at Nestlé Waters. “We need a strategic corporate level view across our brands and SKUs and need these insights to be available quickly to respond to market dynamics. M-Factor’s Software-as-a-Service solution offers the right level of planning and short implementation time that we need to improve top line growth in the near term.”

“We are thrilled to have Nestlé Waters join our growing list of customers who have chosen M-Factor software to provide continuous insights that they can act upon in real-time,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO at M-Factor.  “We will work with Nestlé Waters to establish trade investment strategies to achieve the optimal balance of improved volume and margin and in the short time frame that they desire.”

About Nestlé Waters North America

Nestlé Waters North America Inc., based in Greenwich, Connecticut, is a corporate affiliate of Nestlé S.A., of Switzerland. Central to the leadership of Nestlé Waters North America Inc. is its 33-year history and single-focus on producing bottled water products. The company’s dedication to product quality, manufacturing expertise, employee development and environmental stewardship, especially in the areas of water use, energy and packaging, has helped Nestlé Waters become the number one bottled water company in the U.S. To reach success, the company follows its credo: Respect for each other, respect for the environment, and respect for the community. To learn more, visit http://www.nestle-watersna.com/index.