“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.

SAN MATEO, Calif. and Bangalore (India)- June 9, 2009 - M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics solutions for marketing and trade investment management, has forged an alliance with Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT).  The partnership will offer analytics solutions and services for retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), quick service restaurants (QSR) and manufacturing clients across the globe.

The Wipro and M-Factor partnership will offer quick-to-deploy marketing and trade analytics solutions that will enable clients to use forward looking, predictive analytical insights on their marketing and trade investment strategy.  The power of an easy to use, scalable, SaaS analytic solution from M-Factor coupled with Wipro’s deep CPG analytical skills, global delivery model and ability to scale for global markets provides a unique value proposition and cost effective solution to clients.

CPG companies spend from 11% to 20% of revenue on marketing and trade promotions making it their second largest cost; next only to the cost of goods sold.  Most companies are not currently able to show a positive return on this massive investment.  A conservative estimate by M-Factor and Wipro, of the potential benefits of an optimized marketing plan and trade promotion strategy relative to a non-optimized plan, are operating margin improvement in the range of 10%-15% and revenue improvement in the range of 3%-5%. This can result into a ROI of well over 150% for a mid-sized CPG company.

Booz & Company and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) carried out a study that revealed that 90% of marketing and non-marketing executives believe marketing is challenged to measure the ‘effectiveness’ of marketing investments.¹ This has become even more important in the present economic downturn where enterprises are expected to ‘save more’ and ‘do more with less’. Predictive analytical insights help enterprises with this endeavor of optimizing their marketing and trade spends. According to an IDC study, projects with predictive analytics yield a higher ROI of 145% compared with other analytic projects which yield a median ROI of 89%. ²

“Availability of consumer and market data in highly volatile economic conditions has sparked a huge demand for a flexible and scalable software platform approach for providing analytical insights.  Our partnership with M-Factor enables us to provide our joint customers with a powerful SaaS based analytic solution that allows them to improve their revenues in a cost effective manner”, said Srini Pallia, Vice President and Global Head, Business Technology Services, Wipro Technologies.

“We are delighted to have Wipro as part of our “M-power” partner program. An increasing number of our customers and prospects are looking to deploy the M-Factor platform on a global basis in a swift, consistent and highly scalable manner. The domain expertise and analytics depth at Wipro, fast deployment and broad experience of managing global deployment programs makes Wipro an ideal partner for us. The M-Factor philosophy of delivering quick and sustainable value fits well with the Wipro methodology and they have proven to provide the optimal balance of speed, quality and value,” said Lawrence Whittle, CEO of M-Factor.

The alliance has already seen opportunities for this solution in North America and has also observed growth potentials in the emerging markets of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe.

About Wipro

Wipro Technologies, a division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) is the first PCMM Level 5 and SEI CMM Level 5 certified global IT services organization. Wipro Technologies was recently assessed at Level 5 for CMMI V 1.2 across offshore and onsite development centers. Wipro is one of the largest product engineering and support service providers worldwide. Wipro provides comprehensive research and development services, IT solutions and services, including systems integration, information systems outsourcing, package implementation, software application development, and maintenance services to corporations globally.

In the Indian market, Wipro is a leader in providing IT solutions and services for the corporate segment in India, offering system integration, network integration, software solutions and IT services.

Wipro also has a profitable presence in niche market segments of consumer products and lighting. In the Asia-Pacific and Middle East markets, Wipro provides IT solutions and services for global corporations. Wipro’s ADS’ are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its equity shares are listed in India on the Stock Exchange - Mumbai, and the National Stock Exchange.

For more information, please visit

www.wipro.com
www.wiprocorporate.com

1.http://www.booz.com/global/home/what_we_think/books/four_pillars/four_pillars_excerpt

2. IDC, Predictive Analytics and ROI: Lessons from IDC’s Financial Impact Study, 2003. September 2003

SAN MATEO, Calif.- June 9, 2009 - M-Factor, Inc, the premier provider of predictive analytics solutions for marketing and trade investment management for the consumer goods and quick serve restaurant sectors, today announced that it will partner with Customer Marketing Group Inc of Houston , Texas USA.

CMG is a laser focused consulting services firm providing analytically powered consulting services empowering their clients with the ability to “out think” and “out execute” their competition.

“As our business has expanded we have been seeking new partnerships with companies that can work with the M-Factor platform to leverage advisory and technical consulting skills to deliver a faster time to value and broader solution to our customers. Both companies have a belief that “fact based” decision making can be the new competitive weapon in today’s’ every more challenging market place. Our partnership with CMG will enable our customers to have a greater and broader choice of implementation options. We have observed the proven success that CMG has achieved in this highly specialized field and their customer references are truly outstanding. This partnership will enable more Consumer Goods and QSR companies to take advantage of and fully exploit the potential of the M-Factor platform to better plan, optimize and execute their own trade and marketing investment decisions,” said Lawrence Whittle CEO of M-Factor.

“We are delighted to be partnering with M-Factor. M-Factor’s market success driven by their advanced predictive analytics platform is very complimentary to our own services and we look forward to delivering compelling and sustainable value to our joint customers” said Stew Bishop President of CMG Inc.

About Customer Marketing Group, Inc

CMG offers analytical business consulting services to leading manufacturers and retailers.  With a full range of marketing mix, product assortment, sales effectiveness, trade spending optimization and pricing strategy expertise, CMG helps its clients sort through abundant and complex data to plan, execute, evaluate and learn from its marketing and trade plans so they have their best chance of achieving their financial objectives.  CMG’s diverse past and current client base includes CPG manufacturers like Del Monte Foods and the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, retailers Kroger and CVS/pharmacy, service providers like Aramark Food Service and AT&T Broadband, and Quick Service Restaurant Chain McDonald’s.  For more information, please visit www.cmgconsulting.net