Kimberly Clark
Kimberly oversees global sales and strategic marketing planning.
Often, we are asked, “Should I sign up for both the Trends Report and the Insider?”. To help you in your decision-making process, let me walk you through the short and long answers as to why both services provide independent value.
Short answer
Yes. They serve two different purposes and are complementary to each other. Most importantly, they provide you with a well-rounded view of the economy.
The Insider is tactical, and the Trends Report is strategic.
The Insider gives you the insight on current trends impacting businesses such as yours. The Trends Report emphasizes the foresight you need for an adequate runway to make proactive decisions.
Combine the two, and you get both the immediate and the long-term market conditions you need to know to best navigate your business through the ebb and flow of the economy.
Longer answer
Let's take a look at how these two services provide you the tactical and strategic guidance mentioned above.
The Insider includes four components to give you access to accurate information about the economic world around you. These are the ITR Advisor™, the 3-Year US Outlook, real-time updates for top Leading Indicators, and frequent “hot topic” webinars with ITR Economics experts.
Let’s start with the Advisor. The Advisor gives decisionmakers a clear, concise view of the major economic trends they need to be aware of as they manage their businesses. It focuses on the macroeconomy, then concisely breaks down the trends by major US industries.That’s another great point: The Advisor is US-focused while the Trends Report includes forecasts for major economies around the world.
The 3-Year US Outlook covers what ITR Economics considers the “core” components of the US Economy. While this dashboard is also found in the Trends Report, the Trends Report goes further and expounds upon this concept with four additional dashboards, for major industries within the US and economies across the globe.
Updates to top Leading Indicators keep you apprised of need-to-know information as it becomes available. There is no waiting for a monthly publication; you have access to the information now, when you need it. Instead of making you wait a full month for the next edition of the Advisor, we send you updates, with their implications for our outlook, as they become available. These timely updates are also included with the Trends Report subscription.
In my opinion, the biggest difference between the two services is in the value the webinars provide! These webinars are priced at $75 per registration, so becoming an Insider member for only $20 a month is guaranteed to save you money. These webinars are a must-watch. Check out our last year of webinar recordings online to see what topics we covered. I’m sure you’ll agree they’re highly relevant and will help you manage your business to profitability! These must-watch webinars are not included with the Trends Report.
The Trends Report includes 3-year forecasts for all the major components of the US economy, for the low cost of $1,200 a year. You can use it to help with your internal sales forecasting, put-to-market initiatives, budgeting, demand planning, and capital investment timing.
The platform through which we give you this information is similar to the model used by the Harvard Business Review for its articles. You select the forecasts that are of the highest importance to you, and notifications of updates/changes to those specific forecasts are sent to you monthly!
In the end, having both tactical and strategic tools in your planning toolbox can only add to your success in increasing both your top line and profitability.
Did you know you can now view your Insider and/or Trends Report via the ITR onDemand App? Download today!
