M-Factor’s highly experienced professional services team offers a wide array of services to help our customers with everything from initial configuration through training and technical support.

Initial Setup and Configuration
Every customer success story begins here.  M-Factor's Professional Services team works with your organization to identify the business drivers, data sources, model forms, and the myriad of other details that must come together to deliver a comprehensive solution.  M-Factor personnel, either directly or with the support of your team, load the M3 metadata repository with all the pieces of information that will enable your customized implementation of M3.  This process typically takes 4-6 weeks and involves 5 to 20 person-days from your organization.

Report Customization
M3 offers flexible reporting options based on industry best practices.  M-Factor Professional Services works with each client to determine the set of reports that fill the client’s performance and planning assessment needs and configures them to be easily navigated by the user-community.

Data Configuration and Loading
Each client has unique data sets and update requirements, which can be fully supported by our staff.  Most customers need their sales data (Nielsen, shipments and other) updated either bi-weekly or monthly to allow for ongoing performance assessment reporting.  Marketing causals (such as actual aired GRPs) are usually updated monthly or as needed due to significant changes in execution versus plan.  When it comes to transformation and formatting of their data, our clients benefit from the combination of M3’s powerful data verification tools and the custom transformation services that can be provided by our experienced staff.

Model Implementation and Ongoing Assessment/Updating
M3 supports any variety of demand model forms, from any modeling vendor, and allows a high degree of flexibility related to methodology decisions – including additive/subtractive calculations and synergy allocation.  M-Factor Professional Services will ensure that the choices made in configuration are aligned with the modeling decisions to best fit the client’s business, regardless of who creates the models.  

M-Factor Professional Services loads existing or new models into M3 as part of the initial configuration.  Reports are typically configured for tracking model health – in terms of explanatory and forecasting power – on an ongoing basis.  Customers have a wide array of performance assessment reports that can be used to monitor and remediate “model drift”.  As opposed to traditional mix models, which can quickly become stale and obsolete, models that are implemented in M3 are dynamic and can be continuously updated based on changing response functions.

Training
M-Factor Professional Services offers customized training options to our clients.  A typical training session runs about 1 day per functional area and covers topics from an overview of the underlying models and data sets to report generation, interpretation and planning.  Power user and train-the-trainer training sessions are also available.  The M3 user guide is updated with each monthly software release and release notes are provided separately.

Technical support
Our experienced support staff work with each customer to resolve support issues quickly and efficiently.  Support is provided via phone, email, and the web.  Standard support covers business hours.  Premium 24/7 support is also available.