![casual business meeting](http://www.firstretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/clients.jpg)
![casual business meeting](http://www.firstretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/clients.jpg)
In the time that it would have taken one of the Big 3 to fly out a partner to negotiate a deal, First Retail came in, diagnosed the problem with our diverse data sources and had implemented a world class, production ready multiple data source API that enabled our Customer to scale their business. This was foundation of our ability to scale.
– Bruce Pagliuca
Chief Executive Officer
M-Factor (now part of IBM Retail)
M-Factor’s forward looking demand models allowed manufacturers to continuously analyze, forecast and optimize marketing investments and trade spend. A set of patented processes generated models that simply outperformed other models. Yet the bottleneck to success lay in a far more mundane piece of plumbing.
![laptop on table](https://www.firstretail.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/laptop-on-table.png)
The data coming in from the myriad retailers and agencies was inconsistent and sometimes just plain incorrect, and getting the data sources to comply without each undertaking a major project was not an option. Being a time critical business, we had to think fast.
First Retail came in, sized up the problem and came in with a pragmatic methodology that could be deployed quickly with a long term solution. Their extensive experience with scaled applications plus a deep understanding of enterprise data gave them the edge in this problem space.