ICT Research Services, a division of Langhorne, Penn.-based ICT Group Inc., has moved. ICT Research Services is the umbrella company under which Valley Forge Information Service, Solution Research Services and Princeton Data Search operate. ICT Research Services' address and phone numbers are: 584 Middletown Blvd., Langhorne, PA 19047-1822. VFIS also has moved to the same facility.
Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. has formed a partnership with the 2,000-member National Housewares Manufacturers Association to provide point-of-sale scan data to housewares manufacturers. The scanning data from the service will be available from mass merchandisers, drug stores and various other outlets. Black & Decker is the first NHMA member to participate in the POS program.
In other IRI-related news: A federal district court jury decided in June that the company and four of its top officers had not violated federal securities laws in a case that revolved around comments made in 1989 about the company's earnings prospects. Plaintiffs in the class action, filed on behalf of IRI stockholders, had sought compensatory and punitive damages from the company and individual directors, including Chairman Gian M. Fulgoni.
IRI has signed a letter of intent to acquire a minority interest in Cyprus-based MEMRB International. MEMRB provides syndicated market tracking and custom research services through a network of offices in countries and its operations in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Africa. The company was founded in 1962 by the late George Vassiliou, who was then president of Cyprus. It offers retail audits, media research, continuous public opinion studies and ad hoc consumer and business-to-business research. MEMRB recently has introduced audit services in Russia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Terms of and a schedule for the proposed acquisition were not revealed.
Further, IRI has announced revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 1994, of $92.2 million, a 12.3 percent increase over 1993 second-quarter earnings. The company reported essentially no net income during the period and a net loss of almost $8 million in the first six months of '94 - the result, the company says, of litigation costs precipitated by an abortive merger with Survey Research Group.
FIND/SVP, New York, has purchased Industrial Decision Support International Inc., a New York-based consulting firm that specializes in customer satisfaction measurement studies. IDSI President Stephan Sigaud will become managing director of FIND/SVP's new Customer Satisfaction Strategies Division, which will take on all of IDSI's staff and business. IDSI's client list includes Alcoa, American Airlines, Rohm & Haas, Engelhard, Cytec and Praxair. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. FIND/SVP intends to continue to look for opportunities to buy small, profitable consulting and research organizations.
Further, FIND/SVP has formed an new unit called the Emerging Technologies Group. The new unit operates within the company's Published Products Division. Thomas E. Miller heads the group. (See Names of Note.)
Sorensen Associates Inc. - a Portland, Ore., company that does consumer research exclusively in supermarkets - has developed an inter-viewer training and certification program that addresses issues facing interviewers working in supermarkets. The company has honed the program over the past 20 years in an attempt to help standardize its nationwide research. In the program, interviewers watch a training video and read an accompanying training manual. To be named certified interviewers, they must score 80 percent or better on an exam covering the material in the video and manual. Once certified, interviewers are given identification numbers that allow Sorensen to track their work by response rate achieved during in-home studies, placements or interviews per hour, comments made by respondents, and data comparability and reliability.
Gerry Linda has reestablished Gerry Linda & Associates in Glenview, Ill. The firm was previously in operation from 1986 through 1989. Linda's background is inadvertising and qualitative marketing research, and the firm offers services ranging from business planning and brand personality development to marketing research and strategy. Its address is: 2100 Fir St., Suite 3000, Glenview, IL 60025-2815.
The International Research Institutes - a multinational market-ing and social research consortium based in Brussels, Belgium - has selected Response Analysis Corp., Princeton, N.J., as the U.S. member of its partnership. Formerly, IRIS comprised 16 European firms conducting research for Western European companies. Response Analysis Corp. is its first non-European member. The consortium plans to announce Mexican and Asian partners soon.
Barbara Leflein, a former senior vice president of Bruskin/Goldring Research, has formed her own company, Leflein Associates Inc., in Teaneck, N.J. The company will specialize in innovative research services while developing new analytical tools as well as syndicated products. In addition to drawing on Leflein's experience, the firm will use a network of research specialists. Leflein and Associates' address and phone numbers are: 8 Millay Court, Teaneck, NJ 07666.
Total Research Corp., Princeton, N.J., has purchased the assets and business of Business Marketing Services Ltd., London, for 243,000 shares of Total Research stock and approximately $1.6 million in cash. BMS becomes a wholly owned subsidiary known as BMS-Total Research. The finalized agreement creates a marketing research firm that Total Research believes could earn as much as $20 million in the fiscal year that began July 1,1994. The new subsidiary will continue to serve BMS clients such as Dow Europe, Swissair, Lufthansa, Texaco Europe, Motorola, BP and British Airways. According to information supplied by Total Research, BMS grew at an average annual rate of 14 percent over the last five years despite a severe recession in Europe, and had gross revenues of $2.5 million in 1993. Total Research had gross revenues of $12.6 million in fiscal '93. Ten-year-old BMS has 25 employees and conducts 75 percent of its business on the European continent. BMS and Total Research conducted joint marketing seminars on advanced research technologies in London last June.
Meanwhile, Total Research also has released financial figures from its third-quarter reporting. While revenues for the quarter dipped slightly compared to last year's third-quarter number, net income increased. Nine-month totals showed growth for both revenues and net profits. Reported revenue from signed contracts totaled $5,706,920 as of March 31, an increase of more than $1 million over the December 31, 1993 figure. Net income for the quarter was $157,847, or 2 cents per share, on revenues of $3,208,293 - compared to net income of $127,419, or 2 cents per share, on revenues of $3,257,994 for the same period last fiscal year. For nine months, net income increased 59.5 percent over last year to $499,959, or 5 cents per share, on revenues of $10,105,742.
Macro International has opened an office in Moscow. The company, which has been expanding into Eastern Europe, hopes the new location will induce a two-fold increase in business in that part of the world. Macro provides market research and consulting services to companies that want to get their products or services into developing markets. Macro also has offices in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Gyor, Hungary. Macro's Moscow address is: 12 Krasnopresnenskayanab., Suite 1128, M2, 123610 Moscow, Russia.
The Tribune Co., Chicago, has agreed to purchase Farm Journal Inc., Philadelphia, the parent company of Rockwood Research, a St. Paul firm specializing in market research for the ag industry. Terms of the sale, which should be completed in the third quarter of 1994, were not revealed.
Lieberman Research West, Los Angeles, has formed three versions of what it calls a Center of Excellence - one for International Research, one for Litigation Support and one for Qualitative Research. The International Research Center will employ LRW's worldwide network of affiliated data-collection services, which the company hopes to expand to 150 affiliates by the end of 1995. LRW says the network, which covers Europe, Asia, Central and South America, Mexico, Canada, Russia and much of the Middle East, will help it maintain tighter control over projects and conduct research more quickly and cheaply. The Litigation Support Center will aid clients in trademark and copyright infringement cases, advertising-claim substantiation and antitrust work. The Qualitative Research Center's four focus group moderators will offer clients interviewing and focus group services. The company says it grew 68 percent during the two-year period in which the centers were developed.
Metromail Corp., Lombard, Ill., a wholly owned subsidiary of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., has acquired the assets of Customer Insight Co. Inc., a provider of marketing database products and services for PCs. CIC employs 85 people at its Denver facility. According to the new parent company, CIC had 1993 earnings of approximately $10 million. Metromail will maintain CIC's Denver facility and staff, and the wholly owned subsidiary will continue to operate under the same name. CIC President Tery Larrew and his management team will report to Metromail National Marketing Division President Majorie Lucchetti. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Roper Starch Worldwide, New York, has acquired the Crossley Surveys division of Westat Inc.,
Rockville, Md. Roper Starch expects the purchase to help it expand its services in a number of areas, particularly the health care sector. Crossley, which was founded in 1926, produces an annual syndicated study of diabetes patients in the United States. During the past year, the company extended the study to Canada and Western Europe, and demand exists for further expansion, according to Roper Starch. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
Atlanta-based Jackson Associates Inc. has opened a Washington, D.C., mall/focus facility. The new Jackson outpost includes a focus room with client viewing and a private lounge, three private interviewing rooms and a full kitchen with adjacent taste test center. The office opened October 1 for mall intercept work, and later in the month, it will host focus groups, prerecruits and executive and local studies.