Catalina taps IBM analytics to aid in digital transformation

Catalina, a provider of shopper intelligence and personalized digital media, has adopted the IBM Integrated Analytics System (IIAS) as a key pillar of its expanding analytics program to help provide its clients more relevant shopper insights.

Catalina partners with more than 10,000 of the world's leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands across every major category to deliver meaningful value for shoppers anytime, anywhere. Its personalized digital media networks and shopper intelligence insights lead to more effective consumer engagements.

Having helped CPG brands and retailers turn shoppers into buyers with targeted marketing solutions driven by data analytics since 1983, the company is embarking on comprehensive digital transformation to enable retailers and brands to seamlessly connect with consumers regardless of their location, be it in-store, online or via their mobile devices—anytime and anywhere.

As retailers and brands continue to invest in insights-driven marketing programs—to help them do everything from engage the right shoppers and increase sales lift and loyalty, to drive both visits and "basket" sizes—data science is at the core of Catalina.

A key piece of its transformation is the IBM IIAS, a unified data system designed to give users access to advanced data science capabilities, as well as the ability to work with data across hybrid multiclouds, which are a mix of public and private cloud environments, and traditional on-premise IT. The system comes with a variety of data science tools built-in, and because it is based on the IBM common SQL engine, clients can use the system to move workloads from on-premise to cloud environments to begin automating their businesses with machine learning.

In addition, IIAS comes with data virtualization, a built-in capability that enables people to write analytics queries that can access data anywhere across the enterprise. The system also features IBM fast data movement, which enables organizations to easily move data between Hadoop clusters and the IIAS, extending and scaling their processing environments.

"Catalina sits squarely at the intersection of marketing, technology and analytics," said Wes Chaar, chief data and analytics officer at Catalina. "As part of our broader data science strategic initiative, Catalina is leveraging IBM's technology to power more meaningful outcomes from Catalina's analytics solutions, from personalization and consumer choice modeling, to revenue management and multi touch attribution—all to perform at optimum levels. The solutions we are building are critical for our customers because they optimize media and promotional offerings for every single consumer, and enable seamless, integrated user experiences that drive results."

For more information, go to www.catalina.com and www.ibm.com/analytics.