Information Resources, Incorporated was formed in Chicago in 1979 by market researcher John Malec and Gerald Eskin, a University of Iowa marketing professor. The two purchased scanners for supermarkets to gather point-of-sale data based on bar codes in grocery stores that could be sold to CPG companies to track what customers purchase. IRI became a public company in 1983. By 1993 Fortune Magazine named IRI a "company to watch" for expanding into two of its biggest markets: analyzing nationwide scanner data on consumer products and producing computer software. At that time slightly more than half IRI's revenues came from Infoscan, its marketing data service. In late 2003, IRI was acquired by a joint-venture cooperation between enterprise software provider Symphony Technology Group and investment capital firm Tennenbaum Capital Partners. In April 2013, SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. announced that it was rebranding as IRI. In March 2011, New York-based private equity firmNew Mountain Capital bought SymphonyIRI. The company announced that it was changing its name back to Information Resources Inc., or IRI. In January 2019, New Mountain Capital and Vestar Capital Partners announced that Vestar will lead a new investment in IRI.
Management
In February 2004, IRI named former Electronic Data Systems Corp executive Scott Klein as its president and CEO, succeeding Joe Durrett. Klein served as CEO until October 2007, when he moved to IRI's parent company, Symphony Technology Group, and was succeeded by former Salesforce.com executive John Freeland. In June 2012, SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. appointed former Aon COO and McKinsey & Companysenior partner, Andrew Appel, as president and CEO to succeed John G. Freeland, who moved to an interim role as executive vice chairman.
Products and publications
IRI Liquid Data – The Liquid Data technology platform offers data management capabilities driven through hardware, software, patented algorithms, industry models, data integration and supporting applications that are offered as a hosted service or as a separate infrastructure within the customer’s legacy data environment. The platform holds data in a flat or unstructured universe of points and leverages predictive automated analytics to generate information and insights to support specific decisions in minutes.
Infoscan - Each week several thousand grocery, drug, and department stores deliver the product data collected by their scanners. IRI sorts, analyzes, and verifies product price and volume, and then delivers final Infoscan sales information to its customers via tape, disk, or on-line service.
Consumer Network - This consumer panel provides a view into consumer behavior by various household demographic groups. This platform is supplemented by a series of integrated insights, shopper and specialty panels, which are enabled through a new portable, personal collection device.
