Hitachi GST Selects CMR’s Channel POS™ System to Maximize the ROI of its Channel Programs
San Diego, California - January 26, 2006 - Computer Market Research, Ltd. (CMR™), the leading provider of POS and Inventory Reporting Solutions for vendors distributing products in the high tech sector, has announced that Hitachi GST of San Jose, California has selected CMR’s powerful Channel POS™ System.
With approximately 26,000 employees worldwide, Hitachi GST offers a comprehensive product portfolio that sets the standard for hard drive miniaturization, capacity, performance and reliability. Their products include a range of hard drive products for desktop computers, high-performance servers, notebooks and consumer devices.
Channel POS™ from CMR is a supply chain tool that helps Hitachi GST streamline the collection, processing and analysis of POS data from seven distributors in the United States and nine distributors in Europe. Each month, all distributors are required to send their POS data in a standardized format to CMR. This data is automatically imported into the CMR ChannelPOS database from which OLAP cubes and Crystal reports can be extracted. POS data can also be exported to Excel for further “on-the-fly” manipulation.
For several years, the marketing, sales and channel development departments at Hitachi GST had been looking for an easy, flexible method of managing POS and channel data before they selected Channel POS™ from CMR.
“We assessed products from CMR and also one other vendor, whose offering was new and untested and not as robust,” said Barbara Cook, Channel Development Manager for Hitachi GST. “The decision to go with CMR’s Channel POS™ was fairly obvious from the very beginning, but it was their 90-day proof of concept that cinched the deal. It went very well and clearly demonstrated the power of their solution. Channel POS™ now helps us determine if the resources that we are devoting to a given customer are bringing the equivalent ROI and level of results. It has uncovered several accounts where this isn’t the case, which has allowed us to refocus our energies and assign resources to other accounts.”
CMR’s Channel POS™ has enhanced customer relations for Hitachi GST, by providing snapshots of buying patters to enable more effective customer communications. IT has also helped increase sales by identifying how resources can be more effectively allocated and has reduced costs by helping to identify the right trade shows to attend.
Channel POS™ can pinpoint whether resources, both time and people, are being effectively allocated. “We have been quite surprised to find out that the resources we were giving certain customers just weren’t bringing results,” Cook added. “This has allowed us to refocus our energies and resources on the accounts that are buying the most.”
Channel POS™ is also being used at Hitachi GST to track rebates, calculate the return on investment of various marketing campaigns and to give the sales team a window into the state of their accounts. If sales are down for a given representative, Channel POS™ can identify trends in customer orders so that the rep can contact the customer and find out what’s going on. Channel POS™ gives Hitachi GST a snapshot of customer buying patterns with drill down capabilities, so that management can target their customer communications better.
On the marketing side, CMR is helping Hitachi GST with their 2006 marketing plan. Channel POS™ correlates POS data against various trade show attendee lists. In that way, it helps the company decide whether to continue attending a particular trade show. Management can immediately see which shows will pack the most punch. This has helped eliminate trade shows that cost a lot but aren’t being attended by their biggest customers, and vice versa.
About Computer Market Research
For more than 22 years, CMR has delivered cost effective, technology-based applications and services to manufacturers to assist them in managing channel data, optimize their trade promotion investments and maximize the effectiveness of their distribution channels. CMR’s Web-based solutions accelerate and automate distributor and reseller data collection, processing, analysis and reporting. CMR’s newest clients include Buffalo Technology, D-Link, LSI Corporation, and Targus. More information is available from the CMR customer support line at
(858) 795-1021, or can be viewed at www.computermarketresearch.com.
