Manufacturers today depend on new products as a source of revenue growth.  Innovating new products, and tracking actual availability and performance as they are launched is a fundamental need for brand managers and all those involved in the research and development process that is the lifeblood of CPG.  You must understand the trends driving new product success, and how to combine both proven and less-traditional strategies to ensure that your new products are successful.  Even better would be the ability to take pre-emptive steps to build a product’s distribution or change its promotion strategy if it is not falling within designated launch plan indicators – or if it is on its way to blockbusters status and bypassing even your loftiest initial goals.  IRI offers a suite of solutions that can help you innovate and measure new product performance, compare it to category benchmarks, predict future outcomes and proactively maneuver to put your new product on the path you’d like it to be. This suite of solutions includes the following:

• IntroCast Launch Forecasting is a suite of applications that leverages a robust database of category-specific benchmarks to assist in new product goal-setting and trial and repeat forecasting.
• Launch Commander is a launch management service that delivers an accurate year one sales forecast based on as little as 8 weeks of data
• New Item Speed to Shelf is a powerful, web-based tool for manufacturers to ensure maximized success in new item launches
• New Product Profiler  is an enterprise software solution that gives brand and category managers the ability to see and analyze true performance of new products
• Product Locator is a web-based tool that helps consumers easily identify stores in their local area that carry a desired product