July 27th, 2010
White Castle has Selected Forum to Develop a Comprehensive Web-based Tool for Their Site Planning Efforts
White Castle, America’s oldest hamburger concept, has selected Forum Analytics to develop a comprehensive suite of predictive models to assist them in their real estate planning process. Forum will be building new predictive analytics and deploying those models in their proprietary SIMMS Online platform, a highly customized Google-Map environment, that is point and click easy and brings analytics to every level of their organization with easy to use functions and easy to read, customized reports.
July 21st, 2010
Batteries Plus Creates a Complete Real Estate Planning Solution with Forum Analytics
Batteries Plus, a Hartland, WI based retailer of over 320 stores, selects Forum Analytics to design a complete real estate planning solution to provide field and home office staff with on-demand real estate forecasting and analysis through their customized Google-based platform known as SIMMS Online. Through this engagement Forum will develop a series of market optimization models and assist Batteries Plus with their short and long range development planning, and deploy all the analytics and data in a user-friendly, web-based platform where key associates can collaborate and work together to make informed real estate decisions.
May 19th, 2010
Tropical Smoothie Café Retains Forum to Assist in Their Site Selection and Market Optimization Planning
Tropical Smoothie Café selects Forum Analytics to develop a comprehensive real estate mapping, modeling, and reporting tool to assist in their national market optimization planning and site selection process. Tropical Smoothie Café is a franchise operated concept with over 275 cafes in 34 states.
May 19th, 2010
Forum to Deploy Texas Roadhouse into the SIMMS Online Mapping and Analytic Platform
Texas Roadhouse has retained Forum Analytics to deploy the SIMMS Online application, a fully customizable proprietary Google-based GIS system, to map existing and proposed locations. Texas Roadhouse (TXRH) began in 1993 and has almost 360 locations in 46 states, planning to open many new locations throughout 2010.
May 15th, 2010
Styles for Less Retains Forum to Develop a Comprehensive Real Estate Planning Solution
Styles for Less, a fashion retail store with 118 locations across Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida, has partnered with Forum Analytics to create a comprehensive web-based mapping, reporting and sales modeling tool.
May 1st, 2010
Forum Adds Qdoba to their VEXRAY Portal for Real Estate Site Management
Qdoba Mexican Grill, has selected the services of Forum Analytics to become integrated in the VEXRAY real estate optimization and forecasting platform. Qdoba was established in 1995, in Denver, Colorado and has since grown to include over 500 restaurants from coast to coast. In 2003, Qdoba was acquired by Jack in the Box Inc., who in addition to Qdoba, operates and franchises more than 2,180 restaurants in 18 states.
March 15th, 2010
Chamberlain College of Nursing Selects Forum to Develop a Comprehensive Real Estate Planning Solution
Chamberlain College of Nursing has retained Forum Analytics as its partner vendor in developing a comprehensive real estate planning solution. This customized web-based mapping, reporting and sales modeling tool will provide critical demographic, competitive, benchmarking, and lifestyle information for Chamberlain’s campus site planning efforts. Chamberlain has a solid and historical, 120-year educational foundation of preparing compassionate, knowledgeable, and clinically proficient graduates. Formerly known as Deaconess College of Nursing, Chamberlain College of Nursing was acquired by DeVry Inc. in March of 2005. Chamberlain College of Nursing is fueled by the ingenuity of a progressive and expansive nursing program.
February 1st, 2010
Forum Creates Canadian Databases of Major Competitors for Breugger's Baked Fresh
Bruegger’s Enterprises, founders of the retail bagel concept in 1983, are expanding into Canada and have selected Forum Analytics to generate a database of all Canadian major competitors for their growth efforts.
February 15th, 2010
Primrose Schools Added a Marketing and Franchisee element to their current SIMMS Online System
Primrose Schools deployed an expanded marketing module for the marketing department and brought all franchisees online with a user friendly mapping portal.
November 13, 2009
HoneyBaked Ham Selects Forum for Market Optimization Strategy
The HoneyBaked Ham Company, a family owned and operated business for over 50 years, has retained the services of Forum Analytics for the development of a sales forecasting model and for the Forum Analytics proprietary market optimization routine. Collectively these tools will provide HoneyBaked Ham with an advanced analytic framework for future expansion efforts and a blueprint for successful growth in markets across the country. This system will enable HoneyBaked Ham ongoing analysis for individual site assessment as the brand’s development increases.
September 4th, 2009
Forum to Assist Frandeli Group in Restaurant Concept Expansion Analysis
Forum Analytics has been retained by the Frandeli Group of Southern California to conduct a national market potential analysis for one of its family style restaurant concepts. Looking to grow substantially in 2010 and 2011, Frandeli is seeking the most objective, data-driven road map to assist in their strategic planning process. Forum will utilize numerous proprietary data-metrics, benchmarking, and modeling techniques to assist Frandeli in this project. The end result will be to identify the DMAs across the country with the greatest untapped demand for this concept, then drill into those DMAs to identify areas of highest gap opportunity right now. In addition, Forum will be utilizing their proprietary VEXRAY commercial property inventory to identify available commercial space in the areas of highest opportunity for their concept. This will increase their speed to market in the areas of highest opportunity.
July 31st, 2009
NEXCEN Brands Partners with Forum for Comprehensive VEXRAY Real Estate Solution
NEXCEN Brands, operators of The Athletes Foot, Shoe Box New York, Pretzel Maker, Pretzel Time, Maggie Moos, Marble Slab Creamery, and Great American Cookies has retained the services of Forum to become fully integrated in the VEXRAY real estate optimization and forecasting platform provided exclusively by Forum. By participating in VEXRAY, NEXCEN Brands will have optimal real estate opportunities delivered directly to their appropriate real estate resources in real-time for all of their brands. VEXRAY will filter away the unsolicited junk, automatically saving their real estate resources time and effort, and ensure that every site opened will maximize top-line return and minimize same-brand cannibalization risks between operators. In addition, Forum will be providing market optimization blueprints for the entire country for each expanding brand to assist in high level strategic planning.
June 30th, 2009
Ace Hardware Invites Forum to National and Regional Events
Ace Hardware has invited Forum Analytics to provide hands on training to all of their regional field level associates for their comprehensive SIMMS Online sales forecasting system and VEXRAY real estate web-portal. Through a combination of on-site and webinar training sessions, all Ace users will have the opportunity to thoroughly understand the full power of these proprietary real estate forecasting and planning systems developed by Forum. The training sessions mark the second anniversary of the launch and integration of Ace with the VEXRAY platform and will be on-going through the end of 2009.
June 15th, 2009
Native Foods Retained Forum for Consumer Research and Planning Analysis
Forum Analytics was retained as a research partner to provide consumer qualitative and quantitative analysis for Native Foods, a California based restaurant chain. In addition to assisting in consumer research, preference, and propensity analysis, Forum will also be delivering a fully automated Google-based online real estate mapping and planning tool to assist with their expansion initiatives.
May 22nd, 2009
Primrose Schools Partners with Forum Analytics to Create Statistical Modeling and Geographic Information System (GIS)
-- New system will assist in strategic expansion and development efforts --
May 1st, 2009
Forum Analytics Forms Strategic Alliance with Catylist Inc.
Forum Analytics today announced a strategic alliance with Catylist Inc., a leading commercial real estate listing service. The partnership seeks to enhance the traditional listing service model by utilizing Forum's patent pending VEXRAY site qualification engine to identify high potential tenants for available retail properties in real-time. This new interaction model performs a level of data-driven match making between real estate agent and retailer using over 150 business, site, market, competitive, and sales potential attributes unique to each retailer in VEXRAY and known to drive each retailer's success. The results are more highly qualified leads for real estate professionals and better sites for retailers to invest in for the future success of their business.
"This alliance provides the foundation for a seismic shift in the traditional real estate interaction model." said Paul Sill, President and Founder of Forum Analytics. "Retail inventories are at an all time high and real estate professionals are struggling to gain the exposure they need for their sites with qualified, growing retailers. Retailers are being asked to do more with fewer resources and are being highly selective in their new real estate decisions. VEXRAY provides the only framework within which both parties can come together and have highly advanced match-making algorithms identify best available sites and put those best sites in front of the right retail representative to ensure it gets the attention it should." Mr. Sill continued.
When it rolls out, the completed integration will provide Catylist's Commercial IQ subscribers with real-time highly qualified tenant leads for free. This integrated solution will provide the first eHarmony like commercial interaction model on the market. VEXRAY is available as a licensed processing engine for any commercial listing service platform. It is also available for use by retailers whether they have a sales forecasting model or not.
For more information about VEXRAY please visit www.VEXRAY.com or call Forum Analytics at 1-800-689-1652. For more information about Catylist and Commercial IQ please visit www.CommercialIQ.com or call Catylist at 1-800-595-5478.
April 20, 2009
US Education Corporation selects Forum Analytics for Web Mapping Solution
US Education Corporation (USEC), has retained Forum Analytics as its partner vendor in developing a comprehensive online mapping tool for use in real estate planning. This customized web-based tool will provide critical demographic, competitive, benchmarking, and lifestyle information to the entire USEC development staff through an easy to use online mapping interface and trademark "one-click" simplicity of Forum's solutions. USEC is one of the leading providers of postsecondary healthcare education in the western region of the United States. The Company provides a comprehensive offering of high-quality career-oriented healthcare programs ranging from entry-level programs such as Medical Assisting, Dental Assisting, Pharmacy Technology, and Healthcare Administration, to advanced programs such as Nursing, Dental Hygiene, Surgical Technology, Medical Sonography and Respiratory Therapy. USEC has a long history of providing high quality education through its two operating divisions: Western Career College (“Western”) and Apollo College (“Apollo”). The Company currently has more than 8,500 students enrolled at 17 campuses located in high-growth markets. Most of the Company’s campuses are in areas that are growing in population at twice the national rate. Western currently has eight locations clustered in northern California. The nine Apollo campuses are located in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.
April 6, 2009
Forum Adds Little Caesars to their VEXRAY Portal
Forum Analytics today added Little Caesars Pizza to their growing list of retailers and restaurants taking advantage of the revolutionary VEXRAY match making engine for commercial real estate. VEXRAY functions like the eHarmony of real estate by providing a data-driven site compatibility match for each of its retail clients using available real estate in the market place, all in real-time. VEXRAY is the first and only real estate management tool that combines the power of sales forecasting and demographic analysis with actual real estate leads, creating a fully integrated and seamless solution to managing real estate for any size company.
March 11th, 2009
Clancy Investments Retains Forum for Market Research
Forum Analytics has been retained by Clancy Investments to conduct qualitative and quantitative consumer research and sales potential forecasting for their newest restaurant acquisition in Southern California. Forum's research will lay the groundwork for the expansion and market development opportunities by utilizing our patented market optimization routine in conjunction with field based consumer focus groups and quantitative analysis. This three stage project will explore the market opportunity in both southern California but also investigate the transfer power of the brand in east and Midwest markets.
January 15th, 2009
GIS Helps Find Profitable Locations for Schlotzsky's Deli
By Karen Richardson, ESRI Writer
Whittle knows what he's talking about. He's in charge of finding successful business locations for food franchises that FOCUS Brands owns and manages.
The company operates more than 2,200 restaurants, bakeries, and ice cream shops in the United States and several other countries including Schlotzsky's Deli, Carvel, Cinnabon, and Moe's Southwest Grill.
Schlotzsky's Deli, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is an international franchise restaurant chain with locations in 35 states and six foreign countries. The deli with the motto, "Funny Name. Serious Sandwich" is popular for its fresh food including pizzas and oven-toasted sandwiches made with freshly baked bread. This restaurant in particular has had significant growth, piquing FOCUS Brands' interest in finding profitable spots for new Schlotzsky's Deli franchises. With so many casual dining options available to patrons today, it is a risky business to open a restaurant. Even successful franchisors like FOCUS Brands need an edge. For FOCUS Brands, the magic bullet was geographic information system (GIS) software – ESRI’s ArcView - and the insight the software gives to clients who use it for modeling and spatial analysis. Using ArcView helped FOCUS Brands realize a 5 to 10 percent increase in sales revenue from the Schlotzsky's Deli chain and reduce the time it takes to create strategic plans for new market areas for new franchises from weeks to mere hours. Most importantly for a successful franchisor, using ArcView has significantly reduced the rate of store closures because the modeling used is so accurate.
More than Maps
"In the retail business, many CEOs mistakenly think GIS means only maps," says Paul Sill, chief executive officer of Forum Analytics, LLC, a Chicago-based consultant and ESRI business partner that introduced GIS to FOCUS Brands. "But maps are an ancillary benefit to business decision making; our client solutions provide a numeric, financial basis for bottom-line development decisions using GIS as an enabler of market information."
The solution Forum Analytics created for FOCUS Brands—the Strategic Integrated Mapping and Modeling System (SIMMS)—incorporates ArcView for visualizing, managing, creating, and analyzing geographic data.
The SIMMS application provides critical decision-making information including customized datasets such as
- Schlotzsky's competitors geocoded to specific street addresses
- The Directory of Major Malls (DMM) Shopping Center database, which includes information on leasable area and anchor tenants
- Block group and ZIP Code demographics and a variety of sophisticated spatial analysis models like linear regression and probability forecasting models
By using a few mouse clicks, this information is delivered to FOCUS Brands' employees, who decide where new franchises will open. "Having all the data and models available in one place is one of the most important aspects of the system," stresses Sill. "Using SIMMS allows every level within a company to analyze the same set of key metrics and reports at the same time."
All tasks are easily performed by FOCUS Brands staff, which includes one GIS usability director, six real estate directors, and the vice president of real estate.
A strong testimonial to the power of using GIS for franchising is the track record of the last 12 Schlotzsky's Delis the company opened. Eleven of the stores were opened based on a SIMMS analysis that showed that the chances of success were high. All those stores have exceeded sales expectations, according to Whittle. The twelfth store, opened in an area requested by a franchisee, didn't perform as well. When the deli location was run through SIMMS, the application predicted sales wouldn't warrant opening the store.
"If we were able to make a decision about that store based solely on the information provided to us by SIMMS, we wouldn't have agreed to open it," said Whittle. "This really shows how useful and accurate the system is."
The SIMMS application is fully customized each time it is delivered to a client.
Solution Makes Choosing Store Locations Easier
ArcView coupled with SIMMS makes the complex task of selecting sites for new Schlotzsky's Delis easier. The six real estate directors, located in major metropolitan areas throughout the country, access information from the application through a Web portal interface managed by the home office. SIMMS analyses are automatically generated for available real estate locations through this Web interface. This gives each director the ability to quickly access information needed when meeting with new franchisees instead of requesting reports from the main office. Using GIS for this task saves the company valuable time; before, it could take several days to get back to a franchisee once a report is requested. By allowing the real estate directors easier access to the reports and output of SIMMS, customer service has vastly improved. Another benefit is that the GIS usability director has more time to spend on other aspects of the business such as strategic planning analysis.
"A lot of time has opened up for our manager to focus on strategic projects and database management for all the brands in terms of unit and site tracking versus just running demographic analyses every day," says Whittle.
FOCUS Brands greatly benefits from integrating GIS into its real estate department including the ability to do fast strategic planning. "Before using ArcView and SIMMS, a strategic plan would take months to complete and would require days and weeks in a specific market to learn the potential trade areas. This was very costly from a travel expense standpoint and required almost 100 percent focus for the real estate field team for weeks and months," says Whittle. With the software it is possible to create a nationwide plan in just a couple of weeks.
SIMMS helps FOCUS Brands in another way: It has the ability to accurately predict sales for newly opened locations. "If the site model predicts $700,000 in sales for a location, we can feel comfortable that the restaurant will be within a certain range, plus or minus, of that prediction," Whittle says. "To date, the modeling and forecasting has achieved very strong predictability and is something we feel very comfortable relying on when making final site decisions."
This helps FOCUS Brands further optimize their store openings. Not only can the company model how many new restaurants a certain market can carry, but they can prioritize new location openings based on predicted revenues. "If I have a choice between opening two locations—one that has predicted annual sales of $800,000 and another with $1 million—I'm going to open the site with the bigger potential," Whittle says.
Sill agrees. "GIS has become an enabler in optimization. Without GIS, there is no way a business owner can efficiently sift through hundreds of ZIP Codes and associated demographics and accurately forecast sales of specific areas. Using GIS, we allow FOCUS Brands to visualize the correct spatial configuration for the maximum revenue."
Using GIS, FOCUS Brands is able to give franchisees a better chance at finding a successful location. Using the system to predict sales and optimize store locations in each market, the company expects to see a 5 to 10 percent increase in sales revenue and a significant decrease in restaurant closures.
Whittle strongly believes GIS is needed for site selection and optimization. "You really owe it to your franchise system."
For more information, contact Paul Sill from Forum Analytics at psill@forumanalytics.com or 773-252-2235 or Mark Whittle, FOCUS Brands, Inc., at mwhittle@focusbrands.com or 404-257-7040.
Read the "ArcWatch" article in its entirety.
December 2nd, 2008
Tribune Interactive Media Deploys Forum Analytics Web Maps
Tribune Interactive Media Services has completed the deployment of Forum Analytics residential mapping service on its website. The proprietary Google-based neighborhood resource maps can be found at www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/. This constitutes a major upgrade for the Chicago Tribune website providing them the opportunity to better engage with their consumers. Forum and the Chicago Tribune have been working together since 2005 to provide a continually enhanced user experience through maps and relevant data reporting on the residential real estate pages of their website. This project provided the first stage of Google= customized mapping features allows the end user to interact with a Google framework but view custom data overlays. It is a true marriage of high quality mapping with highly accurate GIS level back-end data sources.
November 9th, 2008
Focus Brands, FASTSIGNS and Forum Analytics Featured in Franchise Times Publication
Forum Analytics was featured recently in an industry leading franchise publication for its proprietary market optimization modeling and real estate lead generator known as VEXRAY.
Read "A Bigger Burrito" and "RE Matchmaker" in their entirety.
October 17th, 2008
Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Partners with Forum Analytics
Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate (SVN) is a San Francisco based commercial real estate advisory service with offices across the country in every major metro market and is one of the fastest growing commercial real estate firms in the country. SVN has elected to partner with Forum’s VEXRAY.COM real estate match-making engine and will direct feed over 1,200 existing retail listings into VEXRAY to pre-qualify them and match them to prospective retail tenants. Advisors from SVN will also have on-going direct link access to VEXRAY for all future listings through a back of the house integration allowing them one-click access to VEXRAY’s powerful site qualification engine. More information about Sperry Van Ness can be found at www.svn.com.
October 15th, 2008
Salsarita’s Fresh Cantina Selects Forum Analytics for Market Optimization Strategy
Salsarita’s Fresh Cantina, a North Carolina based franchisor of quick and fresh tex-mex style food, selected Forum Analytics to create a sales forecasting model and market optimization plan for its on-going domestic development. With 102 stores in 22 states, Salsarita’s is ready to employ the use of advanced analytics to drive its growth, ensure the highest probability of success for its franchisees, and employ true data-driven decision making for strategic development. More information about Salsarita’s can be found at www.Salsaritas.com.
September 30th, 2008
RETAIL LEAD GENERATION PORTAL VEXRAY.COM FORMS STRATEGIC ALLIANCE WITH THE SITE TO DO BUSINESS
Chicago (September 30, 2008) - VEXRAY.COM today announced their newly formed strategic alliance with The Site to Do Business, a subsidiary of the CCIM Institute and a leading portal for real estate marketplace information resources. "We’re very pleased to form a mutually beneficial relationship with an organization that drives so much of the retail real estate marketplace. This partnership will ensure more CCIM members gain the competitive edge that VEXRAY.COM’s proprietary lead generation engine provides." said Paul Sill, President and Founder of VEXRAY.COM.
VEXRAY.COM is a retailer sponsored listing service, the only one of its kind in today’s marketplace. Commercial real estate agents have the opportunity to list their property within VEXRAY for free. Doing so triggers an eHarmony® like match-making process that considers the site against over 200 demographic, competitive, business, site, and geographic factors unique to every participating retailer. The end result is a match quality score and a direct link to high potential retail tenants. VEXRAY serves up high qualified leads for brokers at the right time in a retailer’s decision-making process. Current retail participants include Ace Hardware, Sears, FASTSIGNS International, Batteries Plus, Gatti’s Pizza, Schlotzsky’s Deli, Cinnabon, Carvel, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Modell’s Sporting Goods, and Anytime Fitness.
STDBonline.com is the premier website for real estate information and market analysis in the commercial real estate industry. STDBonline.com contains and uses data provided by leading database providers such as ESRI, TeleAtlas, i-cubed Imagery and Acxiom. The data is aggregated in seconds and presented in various formats. STDBonline.com may be utilized for Nationwide Aerials, Demographics, Business Information, Consumer Expenditures, Retail Market Potential, Financial Data, Flood Maps and much more. STDBonline.com allows you unlimited access to run unlimited reports on unlimited locations nationwide. Whether your focus is retail, office, industrial, multi-family or other commercial disciplines, STDBonline.com will provide you the information necessary to make informed decisions for yourself and your clients.
About VEXRAY.COM
VEXRAY.COM is owned and operated by Forum Analytics, LLC, a Chicago-based research and consulting company that is redefining the real estate landscape. Forum Analytics provides business intelligence solutions to companies of all sizes to assist in real estate planning, market optimization, market share capture, assortment planning, and customer loyalty. Their unique, award winning solutions streamline the entire real estate process and provide a platform from which critical decisions can be made with real-time information. Their solutions are utilized by retailers operating over 18,000 locations generating over $60 billion in annual revenue globally. So whether you’re expanding across the street or across the globe, Forum’s solutions will ensure a successful outcome.
More information about Forum Analytics can be found at www.ForumAnalytics.com or by calling 1-800-689-1652. You may access the VEXRAY real estate portal at www.VEXRAY.com.
About The Site To Do Business (STDB)
STDBonline (Site To Do Business) is an online resource center for commercial real estate professionals which provides information used to analyze and compare the past, present and future trends of properties and geographical areas. STDBonline is owned by the CCIM Institute and the site is operated by STDB, Inc. (STDB), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CCIM Institute. STDBonline users vary to include different types of Commercial Real Estate Professionals. Some of those include brokers, retailers, developers, appraisers, mortgage bankers, site analysts, investors, landlords, tenants, restaurant owners, business and economic development planners and more.
For more information about STDBonline, visit www.STDBonline.com or call 469-232-2600. To view samples of reports available on STDBonline.com, visit www.STDB-seesamples.com.
September 30th, 2008Little Caesars is Hot N Ready for Forum’s Market Optimization Modeling
Little Caesars retained the services of Forum Analytics today for the development of a sales forecasting model and for the Forum Analytics proprietary market optimization routine (the Optimizer). Together these tools will provide Little Caesars with a data-driven, analytic framework for future development initiatives and a roadmap for successful growth across the country. In addition to the sales model and optimization routine, Little Caesars will be participating in the VEXRAY.COM real estate filtering portal operated by Forum Analytics. VEXRAY will be used to identify more available site opportunities for franchisees and utilize the new sales model as a pre-qualification engine for filtering thousands of real estate opportunities to find the best ones available right now, focusing franchisees on the best sites for expansion and increasing their speed to market with new site openings.
September 20th, 2008
GameStop Engages in Store Clustering Analysis with Forum Analytics
GameStop, the world's largest video game retailer with over 4,400 stores located throughout the United States and 15 countries, has retained the services of Forum Analytics to perform advanced statistical modeling for the purpose of identifying the market factors that drive their best-performing units. This project will enhance their efforts for identifying market gap opportunities across the country as they seek to further expand into high potential new locations. The modeling process developed by Forum will ensure the highest degree of success for new locations and also assist with issues from inventory assortment to advertising effectiveness. More information about GameStop can be found at www.gamestop.com.
August 29th, 2008
Anytime Fitness Retains Forum Analytics for VEXRAY Portal
Anytime Fitness, one of the fastest growing franchise concepts in the country, has retained the services of Forum Analytics to develop a customized in-house mapping system and web portal to streamline their real estate site selection process. Anytime Fitness operates 792 fitness centers across the United States, Canada and Australia, and has plans to open several hundred more in 2009. Through the use of Forum’s proprietary VEXRAY web portal, Anytime plans to organize the thousands of real estate opportunities they must consider every month into a prioritized, qualified database of high potential sites for prospective new operators. By using VEXRAY's advanced filtering approach, Anytime will get to market faster and develop units in smarter configurations, which will maximize their market share and minimize the risk of sales overlap between units.
August 1st, 2008
DeVry University to Develop Web-Based Marketing System with Forum Analytics
DeVry University (Ticker: DV), one of the leading for profit educational firms in the United States, has retained Forum Analytics to develop a web-based mapping and demographic reporting system for their field representatives working on local marketing initiatives across the country. Forum will be developing a proprietary Google-based GIS system to allow their marketing associates to map existing and proposed locations, plot existing students and potential leads, and draw market areas for creating direct mail lists and demographic reports. This new system is aimed at enhancing the information resources and capabilities of the field representatives tasked with driving new student enrollments in each market. DeVry University operates 106 educational locations across the country with 15 planned facilities in 2009.
July 15th, 2008
Google and Forum Analytics Enter Into Licensing Agreement
Forum Analytics has entered into a licensing arrangement with Google, Inc. to develop web-based GIS mapping systems capable of providing the cutting edge graphics most business clients have come to expect from GIS. Forum will develop customized web-deployed GIS systems for business functions such as sales forecasting, territory optimization modeling, competitive impact analysis, target customer modeling and consumer behavior mapping and modeling. Through this partnership, Forum will be poised to lead the charge in the private sector towards the advancement of full-service real estate GIS systems leveraging the quality of the Google Maps and Google Earth technology. Each solution will be customized to integrate client data such as store locations, existing customer households, protected areas, and high development zones.
June 30th, 2008
Forum Analytics Launches the VEXRAY Web Portal
Forum Analytics is once again reshaping the commercial real estate landscape with the launch of its proprietary commercial real estate match making engine at www.VEXRAY.com. The VEXRAY website is currently populated with 12 national retailers all using advanced sales forecasting models developed by Forum to pre-qualify all their existing real estate opportunities in real-time, across the country. VEXRAY provides the perfect combination of the Lending Tree meets eHarmony model to provide retailers with more site opportunities, a better organization structure, and real-time online sales forecasting and market intelligence.
VEXRAY provides numerous benefits to retailers. Through increased visibility, they’ll gain access to hundreds of sites they may never have been exposed to using traditional channels of interaction such as listing services and tenant reps. VEXRAY allows them to focus their organization on the highest potential sites based on known success attributes and drivers of their business which will increase their speed to market and change the entire real estate process from reactive to proactive. The VEXRAY portal also provides a central repository for the status, communication, and execution of every prospective site and is shared across the entire organization. Finally, VEXRAY maximizes the value of any forecasting model investment and delivers a higher ROI by ensuring that all sites are measured against the evaluation criteria required for success.
With over 18,000 units and $60 billion worth of client sites assessed, Forum is an industry leader in market analytics for retail driven businesses.
May 15th, 2008
FOCUS Brands Partners with Forum Analytics to Create Statistical Modeling and Geographic Information System (GIS)
FOCUS Brands, the franchisor and operator of over 1,750 ice cream stores, bakeries, sandwich shops, and cafes under the brand names Carvel®, Cinnabon®, Schlotzsky’s®, Moe’s Southwest Grill®, and the franchisor of Seattle’s Best Coffee® on military bases and in certain international markets, announced today that it completed the implementation of a comprehensive site selection, market optimization, and sales forecasting system for their recently acquired Moe’s concept. The new system was developed by Chicago-based Forum Analytics, LLC, and streamlines the mission critical task of determining the optimal number of new Moe’s locations for expansion in markets across the country. It also performs sales potential forecasting, cannibalization estimation, and high-potential gap assessment in both new and existing markets.
Mark Whittle, FOCUS Brands vice president of real estate, said “The new solution represents a critical element to the expansion plans under way for the Moe’s brand nationwide. With plans to open 75 new units in the next 18 months, this system helps ensure the highest potential sites are selected first, optimizing the development strategy, and minimizing the probability of making a bad decision.”
Paul Sill, Principal and Founder of Forum Analytics adds, “The implementation of this system is another milestone for our client-focused firm. The science of real estate forecasting is complicated, and highly unique to every client we serve. Our solutions reflect that. Every system we create is customized to meet our client’s specific tactical and strategic goals. This ensures that the modeling and GIS software application we build them has an immediate, tangible impact on their daily and long-term decision making process.”
Whittle continues, “This modeling system gives us an objective measurement tool for assessing performance at our existing units and translates that data into predictive analysis for future restaurants. The Forum Analytics system enabled us to develop and implement a strategic growth plan on a nationwide basis within 4 months after purchasing Moe’s, and provides us an ongoing system for individual site assessment as Moe’s growth increases.