Kognitio Expands Relationship With Nectar Italia, Enabling Greater Customer Insight Across A Wide Range Of Retailers

BRACKNELL, England, Jan. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kognitio, driving the convergence of Big Data, in-memory analytics and cloud computing,today announced an expansion of its relationship with Nectar Italia, designed to help retailers throughout Italy better understand the behaviour of their online customers, and to maximize their purchases.

Nectar Italia will enhance its adoption of Kognitio technology to analyse data gathered through its loyalty card from customers of its Italian retail partners.

"By better understanding consumers' behaviour, both Nectar Italia and our clients are better able to anticipate their needs and thus provide better service, both in-store and online," said Francesco Tiberi, Nectar Italia Head of IT.  "The rapid analytics we achieve through the use of the Kognitio Analytical Platform have proven to deliver solid value to us and our clients."  Tiberi noted that Nectar Italia's use of Kognitio enables his firm to instantly analyse massive volumes of data.

"Companies increasingly realize that it is no longer enough to historically analyze past customer behavior.  They know that using data to predict customers' interests at the point of sale has become an absolute necessity in today's marketplace," said John Myers, Senior Analyst, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing at Enterprise Management Associates.  "Powerful data management systems, like Kognitio, are the key to that kind of advanced and near real-time analysis.  Kognitio's ability to return queries against Big Data volumes within seconds delivers the kind of insight that companies need to better understand their customers, and to retain them in order to successfully grow their business."

The Kognitio Analytical Platform leverages in-memory analytics to enable firms to achieve greater business insight whether they leverage its on-premises software or Kognitio Cloud services.  Kognitio said the Nectar Italia system leverages multiple terabytes of RAM memory and hundreds of CPU cores, spread over more than a dozen servers.

"We regard Nectar Italia as a key strategic client and are pleased that it is utilizing the power of Kognitio," said Steve Millard, Kognitio president and chief executive officer.  "Like other firms, Nectar Italia has experienced first-hand the analytical capabilities that Kognitio delivers.  It knows that the ability to perform queries against massive amounts of customer data, and to obtain results within seconds or minutes, represents a key competitive advantage.  We are pleased that Nectar Italia has chosen to work with Kognitio to realize its goals."

About Kognitio
Kognitio is driving the convergence of Big Data, in-memory analytics and cloud computing.  Having delivered the first in-memory analytical platform in 1989, it was designed from the ground up to provide the highest amount of scalable compute power to allow rapid execution of complex analytical queries without the administrative overhead of manipulating data.  Kognitio software runs on industry-standard x86 servers, or as an appliance, or in Kognitio Cloud, a ready-to-use analytical platform.  Kognitio Cloud is a secure, private or public cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), leveraging the cloud computing model to make the Kognitio Analytical Platform available on a subscription basis.   Clients span industries, including market research, consumer packaged goods, retail, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, gaming, media and utilities. 

To learn more, visit www.kognitio.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Nectar Italia
Nectar Italia is the first coalition loyalty program in Italy, started in 2010, with more than 9 million active customers. Nectar integrates points collection from many brands, belonging to different market sectors, in a single card that allows consumers to collect points faster in their weekly shopping at more than 6,000 retail stores all over Italy.

In 2012, Italian partners of the Nectar program are: Simply, Ipersimply, Sma and Punto Sma supermarkets, Nectar credit card by So Oney, IP petrol stations, Auchan superstores, Unieuro appliance stores, Hertz car rental agencies, UniCredit with its prepaid card Genius Card, the well-known online retailer of books and home entertainment IBS.it, Libraccio.it, the digital shop of the largest Italian chain of new and used school books, the Alpitour World and costa Crociere travel agencies network Welcome Travel, Magneti Marelli Checkstar car repair shops, the online and telephonic insurance company AXA Quixa, clothing stores Original Marines, the first electricity and natural gas private operator in Italian domestic market Sorgenia, SaldiPrivati, the private sales club by 'invitation only' and tyre dealers Driver.

For further information about Nectar Italia, please visit www.nectar.it.

Nectar Italia belongs to Aimia, a worldwide leader in loyalty management.

About AIMIA
Aimia is a global leader in loyalty management. Aimia's unique capabilities include proven expertise in delivering proprietary loyalty services, launching and managing coalition loyalty programs, creating value through loyalty analytics and driving innovation in the emerging digital and mobile spaces. Aimia owns and operates Aeroplan, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program and Nectar, the United Kingdom's largest coalition loyalty program. In addition, Aimia has majority equity positions in Air Miles Middle East and Nectar Italia as well as a minority position in Club Premier, Mexico's leading coalition loyalty program and Cardlytics, a US-based private company operating in transaction-driven marketing for electronic banking. Aimia is a Canadian public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: AIM) and has over 3,800 employees in more than 20 countries around the world. For more information about Aimia, please visit www.aimia.com.

SOURCE Kognitio