Happy New Year and all the best for strong growth in 2015! There are a few exciting pieces of news from our perspective that I’d like to share with you.
As IMI continues to build its research coverage of North American industrial markets, I am excited to announce that we plan to rename Industrial Market Information as MDM Analytics as we enter the second quarter of 2015. Going forward, MDM Analytics more accurately describes the additional data services and marketing/sales analytics capability we continue to develop and that our customers leverage. I will talk more about these added services as we move through 2015.
Late this month we will also be releasing a new book, The Distributor’s Guide to Analytics, a collection of analytics best practices that, in addition to our chapter on market analytics, includes more on sales and marketing analytics, pricing, profitability and inventory management. Some of the top consultants have contributed their thoughts here, and I expect it to be a great tool to help your team set priorities for developing your analytics capabilities in 2015.
At the risk of repeating myself, and I point out in my introduction in the book, there is a widening gap when it comes to effective use of analytics by distributors who are building this capability, and those who don’t have it as part of their skills and capabilities roadmap. More on this next month!
