IRM Corporation Announces New Broker Industry Support Article

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IRM Corporation Announces New Broker Industry Support

IRM Corporation, a leading provider of food industry software, rolls out several initiatives designed to assist brokers and manufacturers in standardizing how data is collected and reported between food and beverage industry parties.

Author: Rick Ferguson

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To kickoff its new focus and initiative in food industry software, IRM has entered into its initial and founding partnership with Management Computer Systems, Inc. (MCS), a leading provider of back office broker information systems. Dean Abrams, IRM’s President/COO stated, “IRM is proud to recognize MCS as a founding partner of this effort, and acknowledges MCS for stepping up and taking the initiative to lead in this area. IRM hopes that other broker systems providers will consider joining this much-needed initiative.”

Abrams continued, “We are fortunate to be in a position to help lead the industry into a set of information technology best practices that are designed to assist both the broker and the manufacturer in their relationship, regardless of the legacy back office systems they may use. We’ve been enhancing the sales reporting and promotion management activities between manufacturers and their respective agencies for years, so it was a logical next step to take our best practices experience deeper into the agency community. The key to success here is to respect and acknowledge each party’s unique food industry software needs, and allow the various technologies to do the dirty work behind the scenes.”

The newly announced food industry software initiative will offer food service and retail brokers a ”best practices” approach to related information technologies and services, while allowing for the individual needs and requirements that each broker and/or manufacturer may have. Abrams, a food industry veteran of over 25 years, also noted, “This is an open invitation for all broker system providers to join this much-needed industry initiative.”

Many brokers are already very aware of IRM’s systems since manufacturers often provide their brokers with their Sales Discovery System® and/or PromoAssist® services. Now, for the first time, brokers can use these services to enhance their own business and reduce non-selling admin time.

IRM’s Sales Discovery System will be offered as a front-end analytics and reporting tool for a broker’s own system data residing in MCS or other legacy systems. Information such as sales, call reporting and account profiling can be delivered in the Sales Discovery front-end or to a manufacturer’s own database. MCS General Manager Joe Del Sordo considers this to be a significant component of the partnership value to MCS’s current base of over 200 brokers, as well as to potential new broker customers. “The incremental value of the data that MCS’s systems capture, when presented in IRM’s Sales Discovery System, will bring a level of insight and ease-of-use to the broker community that up until now has been unavailable.”

Additionally, the combined technologies of the two companies will allow call reporting and account profile data to be collected directly into the MCS system on behalf of a particular mix of principals, based on those principal’s requirements, and then made available to those principals in the Sales Discovery System or can be sent directly into the principal’s own call reporting system. This will serve both the broker and the principal by reducing broker admin time and helping to increase selling time on the street.

Abrams concluded, “In a world where it’s pretty easy to get distracted, IRM and MCS continue to remain focused and dedicated to providing best-of-breed solutions designed specifically for the food and beverage supply chain. With IRM’s installation of Sales Discovery and PromoAssist in over 300 brokerage companies and over 120 food & beverage manufacturers and distributors, and MCS’s installation of their system in over 200 brokerage companies, both companies decided that they would take the initiative and start the collaboration going. We look forward to bringing enhanced value to all parties involved in the food and beverage supply chain.”

About Sales Discovery System (SDS)

The Sales Discovery System (SDS), IRM’s flagship solution, is an easy-to-use subscription-based food industry software service that eliminates the need for paper-based or complex online sales reporting, and provides timely and accurate access to detailed sales, promotion, call reporting and other information. SDS is a portable system and resides on the user’s laptop, allowing users to access information while in the field. SDS also allows users to view, cut, slice and dice sales information across and down into all company, customer and product hierarchies, in cases, dollars, pounds or any other unit of measure. Comparative analysis of performance against previous year as well as against plan or budget is simple. SDS clients include Tyson Foods, Sara Lee, J & J Snack Foods, US Foodservice, Hawkeye Foodservice, Rich Products, ConAgra, and Odom’s Tennessee Pride.

About Author

IRM provides sales and marketing information solutions to companies in the food and beverage industry. IRM's food industry software product and service offerings include sales tracking, reporting and analysis systems, sales forecasting and budgeting systems and promotion/trade spend management systems. For further information, please contact IRM at 1-877-737-2700, e-mail at sales@irmcorporation.com, or visit http://www.irmcorporation.com .

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