Beam Global Spirits & Wine Raises The Bar With Netezza And Aperity

Netezza and Aperity Help Beam Global Gain Visibility into Varying Market, Geographic and Seasonal Fluidity Vital to Sales and Growth

SAN FRANCISCO, ENZEE UNIVERSE—September 24, 2009— Netezza Corporation (NYSE: NZ), the global leader in data warehouse and analytic appliances, today announced that Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc., maker of the world's number-one selling Jim Beam® Bourbon, has selected Netezza and Aperity, leaders in delivering advanced analytics for the consumer package goods industry, to meet their business intelligence needs.

Beam Global recognized the analytics offered through the Netezza platform by Aperity was uniquely positioned to help them forecast future sales and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

As Beam Global looks at opportunities to further grow its portfolio of brands, the company needed a solution that would help address the complex dynamics of predicting a highly diverse retail universe. "We have a three-tier go-to-market model that is fairly complex, and weaving a forecast together to serve both a detailed supply chain forecast and the overall business plan has always been a challenge," said Ed Harney, finance director for Beam Global's Customer Management Group.

Netezza and its OnStream Analytics™ functionality will be leveraged by Aperity to extract and analyze Beam Global's data from all distribution channels including liquor stores, bars, restaurants and other sales outlets. By using the Netezza and Aperity solution, Beam Global can now accurately predict more than 18 months forward across 500,000 retail outlets and thousands of products. Using self learning algorithms, Aperity analyzes the behavior of each brand within each outlet to dynamically determine future opportunities. The Netezza and Aperity solution will enable Beam Global to conduct more detailed and targeted forecasting, unearthing insightful analysis by each outlet that can identify the differences in seasonality purchases, compare reactions to promotions, price increases, reductions and other variables, all within minutes instead of weeks or months.

"Our portfolio of brands have significant seasonal and geographic fluidity. Prior to the Netezza and Aperity solution, we were limited by time and personnel resources on obtaining a complete view of a wide variety of dynamic market conditions," said Erica Lopez, director, decision support systems of Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc. "The insight and actionable decision-making data gained from the forecasting analysis we are now doing are already demonstrating vital business intelligence—such as consumer reactions to price changes within our chain universe—that are necessary to make the best business decisions."

"The Netezza and Aperity solution shows how organizations can find the value in environments that are inherently riddled with disparate information and variability. In this case, Beam Global was able to gain meaningful insight into forecasting that will positively impact their bottom line," said John Madalon, president of Aperity. "Our joint solution allows organizations like Beam Global to reach their inherent potential as they scale to meet growing data and reporting needs."

The Netezza data warehouse appliance is built specifically to analyze petabytes of detailed data significantly faster than existing data warehouse options, at a much lower total cost of ownership. It stores, filters and processes petabytes of records within a single unit, analyzing only the relevant information for each query. Netezza has placed the CPU power next to the data, allowing its appliances to speed through processes that would occupy most data warehouse systems for hours, or even days, thereby enabling dramatic increases in productivity across organizations such as Jim Beam.

"The combination of Netezza and Aperity and the results Beam Global has already seen prove that even years of stored data can be an untapped treasure when leveraged appropriately," said Jim Kelly, vice president & general manager, retail sales of Netezza. "Netezza works with leading organizations in this market and across numerous others as the need to gain competitive advantage is relevant in all industries."

Source: Netezza Corporation