The Cardinal Group, has acquired a majority stake in Visible Business Intelligence (VBI) company, The Ministry of Ideas. Cardinal says it’s part of its strategy to expand its data management capabilities.
The acquisition, which came into effect in April, will see The Ministry of Ideas’ VBI solutions working with Cardinal’s own Business Intelligence (BI) tools – ORIS Integrated Solutions – to present critical data.
According to the firm, VBI involves transforming mainly number-based data streams into user-friendly graphical interpretations. It enables users to visualise and present large amounts of complex data – from various sources – in an interactive way, which can help them to make more intuitive decisions, improve their ROI and respond faster to critical KPI’s.
Jason Trigg, CEO of The Cardinal Group, said: “We are delighted to have acquired The Ministry of Ideas. The company is extremely well respected in the field of VBI and its suite of solutions will perfectly complement our capabilities in this area. Adding the accessibility and usability of Ministry of Ideas’ VBI solutions to the analytical power of our own BI tools will enable us to deliver business critical intelligence to our customers’ desktops, tablets or smart phones when they need it and in a format that enables them to make quick and smart business decisions. We are increasingly seeing a shift towards store operations teams taking responsibility for loss prevention, so it is critical that as suppliers we not only deliver BI to central LP teams but are able to present meaningful, store specific data to field teams via a number of media.”
Mark Throssell, CEO of The Ministry of Ideas, added: “We are very excited to become part of The Cardinal Group. There is great synergy between our VBI solutions and their own BI tools which when combined, presents a powerful offering to existing and potential customers who are looking to enhance the way their critical business data is managed. We’re very much looking forward to the opportunities that this collaboration will afford us.”
The Ministry of Ideas has offices in New York, Poland and the UK, and serves clients including The Coca-Cola Company, Ferrero UK, Absolut, BT, Walt Disney and BP.
Formed in 2003, Cardinal employs more than 1500 head office and store security personnel and its divisions focus on security systems and personnel (Cardinal Security), risk and loss prevention software (ORIS Integrated Solutions), electronic security solutions including internet protocol (IP) cameras and video analytics, to multimedia and consumer experience technology (C-Instore), training (WZ-Europe) and a confidential whistle blowing hotline (Disclose).
