Syncforce
Eindhoven, Netherlands (www.syncforce.com)
Analysis by Don Scheibenreif and Kimberly Collins
Why Cool: SyncForce is a Cool Vendor for its consumer goods-focused brand management
solution that combines planning, project management, master data management (MDM) and trade
promotion management to help brands develop new products, create promotional content and
marketing materials and deliver these across multiple media and devices. Another cool factor is
SyncForce's strong focus on product marketing, which is what differentiates it in the marketing
resource management (MRM) market. SyncForce focuses more on product marketing, whereas
traditional MRM vendors focus more on corporate marketing and creative departments. Founded in
1999, SyncForce offers a 100% cloud-based solution with over 45,000 end users managing more
than 400 brands across Europe. The company focuses exclusively on brand content for multibrand
and multicategory consumer goods manufacturers that sell simple, nonengineered products. The
core of SyncForce's solution is a MDM platform that enables consumer goods manufacturers to
deploy product information and digital assets to a wide range of applications, such as campaign
management, Web content management systems, e-commerce platforms, consumer mobile and
social applications, and retailer ERP systems. SyncForce also offers a strong training and online
content solution to help new brand managers quickly understand the history and guidelines for their
brands. This solution enables a CPG company to present the brand's information and graphics in a
consistent way, regardless of the touchpoint for both consumers and retailers. SyncForce also
issues 25 releases per year to respond quickly to changes in the market.
Challenges: SyncForce is a small company that has grown by word of mouth and has limited sales
resources. To stay competitive and grow beyond its European base, the company will need to
quickly build a strong implementation partner network. This network is critical as SyncForce's
integrated platform means that it competes in areas such as project portfolio management, MDM,
trade promotion management, and content management with many large vendors, such as hybris
and SAP, Accenture, Infor, and Stibo Systems. SyncForce must also differentiate itself from MRM
vendors that provide planning, budgeting and project management capabilities for corporate
marketing and creative departments. Many of the capabilities sound similar to potential buyers, but
SyncForce is different in that it focuses more on product development, product marketing and
specific CPG processes such as trade promotion management.
Who Should Care: CIOs and IT leaders that work with marketing in midtier consumer goods
manufacturers and are seeking an integrated solution for product launch and multichannel content
and digital asset management should consider SyncForce.