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SPSS Software Helping Yamaha Motor Europe Gain Customer Insight
Enhancing Product Competitiveness
Source: www.spss.com
Copyright SPSS, Inc. 2005
02/28/05

This is a dated announcement. The material in this announcement could be superceded by more current announcements.

CHICAGO, 02/28/05 — Yamaha Motor Europe N.V., the European headquarters of Yamaha Motor Corporation, is harnessing SPSS software to gauge customer insight into new product designs. With the use of SPSS Inc. (NASDAQ: SPSS) technologies, Yamaha Motor Europe has improved its new product evaluation process and enhanced the competitiveness of its existing products.

Yamaha Motor Europe gathers customer feedback on new product designs through its online portal, Yamaha Design Café. The portal, which can be accessed from the Yamaha Motor Europe Web site, is geared to motorcycle enthusiasts and features articles on the company’s latest motorcycles. The Yamaha Design Café collects reader feedback about new motorcycle designs by embedding surveys into the feature stories, and uses SPSS survey research software, mrInterview™, to develop and field the surveys.

Another SPSS technology, mrTranslate™, assists the Yamaha researchers in translating the survey results, generated from across Europe. Both mrInterview and mrTranslate are part of SPSS’ Dimensions™ survey research platform.

“With the help of SPSS software, the Yamaha Design Café immediately paid dividends as a new product evaluation tool,” said Hennes Fischer, product planning consultant, Yamaha Motor Europe. “It’s extremely important to stay in touch with how our customers feel. SPSS survey research software enables us to never feel out of the loop, which gives us confidence that we’re always delivering a product that truly meets customer expectations.”

“As Yamaha Motor Europe has discovered, SPSS software provides a quantitative foundation for identifying, evaluating and pursuing new marketing opportunities,” said SPSS President and CEO Jack Noonan. “Our software is helping manufacturers gain valuable insight into ever-changing customer preferences and buying patterns, thereby significantly reducing the risk and expense of product development.”