Our Product Name

Why the name Account Review?

We chose the name Account Review back in 1985, long before the terms CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SFA (Sales Force Automation) were coined. In 1985, very few CPG manufacturers were doing any trade promotion analysis. Of the few that were trying, most used market level data from only one source, such as SAMI or shipment data.

In 1985 we were doing trade promotion analysis with shipment data, internal financial data, and scanner data from the newly public company, Information Resources Inc. (IRI) We choose the name Account Review, because it reflected our vision for trade promotion management:

We chose the word Account because our software drove analysis and decision making right down the customer. This philosophy of getting closer to the customer is an important part of CRM.

We chose the word Review because we brought together all data sources into one database for better focus on the customer. This is another key concept for CRM. Better customer results can be accomplished when all data relevant to a customer is accessible by the people interacting with the key account.

We put the words Account and Review together, because back in 1985 it was very difficult and time consuming to prepare business reviews for customers. Our software focused on reducing and automating trade promotion management tasks, but it also could help prepare business reviews. We decided to use a play-on-words and called our software Account Review. Years later these attributes of helping simplify and computerize the TPM activities of the CPG field sales would be identified as SFA.