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, Bucharest
Strategy to turn online research into a group specialization.
IIS, the Ipsos Group expert in online research, has strengthened its position on the international market with the merger of the two sister organizations in Europe and North America at the beginning of this year. This merger is in accordance with the Ipsos Group strategy to turn online research into a group specialization.
Reasons For Merger
Ipsos wishes to make IIS a global research brand, under which to conduct research online on all the continents where the internet penetration allows it. The global IIS organization will be managed by Andrei Postoaca, CEO, and the new structure will extend its operational focus to also include the countries previously part of IIS NA. Thus, there will no longer be a split between IIS and IIS NA, as the two organizations unite into a single global body striving to achieve a common goal: that of establishing IIS as the leading worldwide organization dedicated to online data collection.
Advantages of the IIS Global Online Research Organization
The know-how and online expertise of IIS coupled with the state-of-the-art Panel Management techniques of IIS NA enable the new global IIS organization to offer more efficient, cost effective and harmonized services to its clients. Multinational companies nowadays prefer to work with one research partner who can bring them integrated services with a worldwide reach. IIS wishes to become a strategic partner for major global players interested in conducting online market research all over the world.
Says Andrei Postoaca, CEO: With the new global IIS organization, we hope to meet our clients' research needs worldwide and support them in conducting their business at a larger scale. We want this new organization to make full use of all the strengths and potential residing in all the centers which have been operating independently in different business units in Europe and North America until now, and we know that by grouping our research activity under one single brand we can cover a larger part of our clients' business needs and offer them integrated services.
A major advantage that IIS is now able to offer its clients is the experience of managing global high quality access panels. At present, the IIS panels cover 24 countries on 3 continents, with the North American panels being the most mature online panels Ipsos has at present. In 2006, IIS added the CEE countries, as well as three important Latin American markets (Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) to its panel portfolio. In 2007, IIS set up online panels in Austria, Ireland, Portugal and Israel and is in the process of recruiting panels in Asia (China, Japan) and Australia. The merger with IIS NA increased the IIS online panels by 500,000 respondents, in the USA and Canada. Overall, the IIS online panels offer our clients access to 1.4 million online panelists in 24 countries (as of February 1st,2007), which represents a significant portion of the world ONLINE population.
Says Efrain Ribeiro, COO and Access Panels Expert: IIS has the capacity and structure to capitalize on the growing global demand for quality, online research services. Unlike other players on this market, IIS has a rich research and access panel heritage that it has incorporated into its operating principles. This will differentiate us from the low cost, low quality providers. In addition, large global clients are seeking single global research providers that operate their online business using common standards and processes.
Future Objectives
The next steps for IIS will include further expanding to other continents, including Asia, throughout 2007. Moreover, this new global context, will allow the company to serve projects in value of 200 million USD for the Ipsos Group.
For more information please write to: communication@ipsos-interactive.com.