BUSINESS STRATEGY
IRI | December 16, 2021
IRI®, a fast-growing, global leader in innovative solutions and services for consumer, retail and media companies, today announced HRB Brands LLC (HRB) is utilizing IRI’s deep category segmentation and demographic profiles to guide its path forward for both its legacy brands and newly acquired personal care brands purchased from Helen of Troy in June 2021.
“Our success leans heavily on the insights and tools IRI provides. We are the David among the giants in our categories. IRI helps us compete day in and day out within established segments and channels as well as in new ‘whitespace’ opportunities we’ve discovered,” said Jim Daniels, chief executive officer for HRB Brands. “HRB Brands is on a significant growth trajectory with our retailers. Consumer and economic trends are in our favor, and with IRI’s help we expect to reach our goals faster than was possible before.”
Through the partnership, HRB Brands has utilized IRI’s Unify® visualization platform, which brings together multiple, disparate data sources to identify emerging market trends and opportunities. Unify offers a single access point to all IRI Liquid Data® solutions, which aggregate and visualize point-of-sale and de-identified consumer panel data to provide a holistic view of consumer trends and purchase behavior in real time.
“IRI’s shopper insights solutions have enabled HRB Brands and other mid-market retailers and manufacturers to develop a deeper understanding of their consumers. By gaining new insights into demographics, segmentation and purchase behaviors, IRI has helped HRB Brands successfully identify opportunities to drive innovation to best connect its portfolio of brands with the varying needs of consumers.”
Robert Porod, executive vice president of Mid-Market National for IRI
About High Ridge Brands LLC
HRB Brands is one of the largest independent branded personal care companies in North America. HRB Brands holds leading market positions in the hair care and skin cleansing categories with iconic brands including ZEST®, VO5®, COAST®, Rave® SGX NYC®, THICKER FULLER HAIR®, Zero Frizz® and LA LOOKS®. HRB Brands is a portfolio company of Tengram Capital Partners.
About IRI
IRI is a fast-growing, leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers, and financial services and media companies grow their businesses. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated into an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI is empowering the personalization revolution, helping to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers, collaborate with key constituents and deliver market-leading growth.
About IRI’s Mid-Market Growth Practice
The Mid-Market Growth Practice of IRI provides high-tech and high-touch support for small- to midsize manufacturers. Regardless of company size, IRI has a data solution that drives understanding and growth. Companies benefit from access to all the same tested and proven solutions offered to IRI global partners, enabling companies of all sizes to democratize data, streamline analytics and, ultimately, win in the marketplace.
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TECHNOLOGY
Slice Labs | March 09, 2022
Slice Labs Inc. (Slice), a technology company with the first on-demand cloud-based insurance platform, and Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. have launched Workers’ Compensation Insurance via AERO Insurance.
AERO’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance product is available initially in Georgia and Illinois, but will soon be available nationwide to Appalachian’s growing customer base of over 100,000 independent agents. Agents experience a frictionless quote and bind journey in less than 10 minutes. The AERO Insurance Workers’ Comp product supports primary industries such as Automobile Service, Construction, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Retail / Wholesale and more across 55+ class codes.
"By expanding our product offerings with AERO to include Workers' Compensation Insurance, we are taking another important step in providing comprehensive and affordable coverage to small businesses, which is often one of their largest operational expenses."
Tim Attia, CEO of Slice
About Slice Labs
Slice Labs Inc. is building the future of insurance by enabling insurers, MGAs, and technology platforms to build intelligent and intuitive, on-demand digital insurance products via Slice’s cloud-based platform. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York City, Slice has been consistently recognized as an insurance and technology leader by industry publications, awards, and Tier 1 publications.
About Appalachian Underwriters, Inc
Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. (AUI) offers a leading insurance wholesale brokerage outlet for agents looking to bring their clients a broad selection of quality products. AUI is a Nationwide MGA that specializes in Workers' Compensation, Commercial Specialty, and Personal Lines products. The company also offers a brokerage unit that expands their product offering beyond their Managed Programs and allows them to place large specialized risks. AUI’s “one–stop” approach affords the convenience of dealing with one sales and administration staff, while gaining access to a wide range of high quality companies. Appalachian Underwriters is a wholly owned subsidiary of Acrisure.
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TECHNOLOGY
Linksys | January 06, 2022
-Linksys, a global leader in home and business WiFi solutions, today announces the launch of its WiFi 6 Cloud Managed Access Point.
“While many workers and companies embrace hybrid work solutions, offices and small businesses still need to ensure they have the latest in fast, reliable and secure WiFi connectivity. At Linksys we recognize both sides of the hybrid work era, and in addition to our remote work solutions we are excited to also launch our newest WiFi 6 Dual-Band access point.”
John Minasyan, Director of Product Management, Linksys
As retail stores, medical offices, small businesses, and commercial spaces begin to operate at pre-pandemic levels and foot traffic continues to increase, the WiFi 6 Cloud Managed Access Point’s 4x4 internal antennas deliver safer, more secure and faster WiFi for areas needing to service a high density of concurrent client connections. With the control plane in the cloud and a cloud-native operating system running on the units, zero-touch provisioning, configuration, management, and monitoring are extremely efficient and simple. With access to Linksys Cloud, users can also scale with no limit to the number of networks and devices managed.
Additional features include:
Qualcomm® Networking pro Platform 1200: Next-generation technology transforms business WiFi with its wire-like stability and blazing-fast performance.
Media-rich Captive Portal: Cloud hosted captive portal splash page and a built-in captive portal editor allows users to upload logos and graphics of any size, customized Terms of Service Agreement or even manage Wi-Fi access with an extra passcode at no additional cost.
Reduce costs: Use Cloud Management without recurring license fees and get access to dedicated professional technical support with no recurring fees.
TAA compliant: NDAA and GSA compliant for US government contracts.
About Linksys
At Linksys, we strive to build the world’s most reliable, innovative, future-ready wireless technologies that can securely connect every person and everything, effortlessly. Founded in 1988, Linksys has since established itself as a premier networking brand. Today, Linksys hardware products, software, and services are sold in 64 countries worldwide, ranging from home routers and mesh systems to business access points and switches. Recently, Linksys expanded into education and enterprise through its partnership with Fortinet, the leader in enterprise-grade security.
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FINANCE
OneConnect | January 10, 2022
OneConnect Financial Technology Co., Ltd. ("OneConnect"), a leading technology-as-a-service platform for financial institutions has today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Chengfang Financial Technology Co. Ltd., (abbreviated as "Chengfang Financial Technology"), a financial technology company established by the People's Bank of China ("PBOC"). Working with shared principles of equal collaboration, joint development, honesty and trustworthiness, both parties will work together to address common pain points in the financial industry, deliver technological innovations, and enhance data processing and governance.
Under the agreement, OneConnect and Chengfang Financial Technology will harness cutting-edge technologies -- including AI, cloud computing and big data -- to explore new applications for data privacy technology in bank surveillance systems, promote the introduction and sharing of new data standards, and identify the financial data collaboration and circulation models needed by businesses to meet the requirements for secure cloud computing. In addition, the two parties will carry out research and development in areas such as secure computing technology, blockchain, and graph data; as well as nurture and cultivate new FinTech talents for the future.
"This partnership with Chengfang Financial Technology is a significant step forward for OneConnect. China's digital banking sector has continuously remained at the forefront of digital transformation, and technology is at the core of its integrity and innovation. As a FinTech B2B business, OneConnect upholds its responsibility to promote the development of the financial services sector. Together with Chengfang Financial Technology, we will continue to adhere to our ongoing mission: to develop and empower the industry with our unique combination of professional expertise and technology, in order to build a new way forward for digital banking."
Wangchun Ye, Chairman of OneConnect
A subsidiary of PBOC, Chengfang Financial Technology is entrusted with the construction, operation, and maintenance of the digital banking system for China's central bank. The company performs resource scheduling and operation management for PBOC's network and data centers, and operates its data transfer management platform to provide the entire system with services ranging from network communications and infrastructure to systems maintenance and data transfer. Its partnership with OneConnect promises to accelerate the digitalization of China's banking sector, and cements OneConnect's position as a leader in digital financial development.
As the world's leading technology-as-a-service platform for financial institutions, OneConnect harnesses cutting-edge technologies to improve efficiency and services for banks, government agencies and exchanges, while also reducing costs and minimizing risk. OneConnect helps providers accelerate digital transformation across four key pillars: the construction of a digital ecosystem, the cultivation of green finance, the integration of the Greater Bay Area, and the continued development of the FinTech sector.
In addition to its partnership with Chengfang Financial Technology, OneConnect has established strategic alliances with the China Securities Regulatory Commission's Technology Supervisory Bureau, Insurance Asset Management Association of China, and China Insurance Asset Registration and Trading System Co., Ltd. The company has also successfully implemented major FinTech projects around the world, including the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's FINI IPO settlement platform, Singapore Stock Exchange's ESG platform, a corporate financing platform for small to medium-sized enterprises in the Guangdong province, Hong Kong's trade finance linkage platform, Guangxi Province's cross-border digital finance platform, the Hainan Provincial Financial Supervisory Bureau's smart integrated financial services platform, and more.
OneConnect has also been aggressively exploring and leading the development of privacy computing in recent years, leveraging its advantages in privacy computing technology and cooperation practices. The company has won China Merchants Bank's bid for the "Privacy Computing Platform Interoperability" project, and the two companies will begin working together closely to build China's first multi-party cross-heterogeneous privacy computing platform. The project will be applied to financial scenarios such as financial risk control, anti-fraud, and blacklist query. By collaborating on this platform, both parties will jointly activate the full potential of big data and boost customer business value on the basis of meeting regulatory data privacy protection regulations.
Looking ahead, OneConnect plans to continue exploring new partnerships with domestic and foreign organizations, government agencies and financial exchanges; strengthen its technological innovation and IP protection; and improve its R&D capabilities in technology in order to accelerate the digitalization of the global financial services sector.
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