Company: Weather Trends International
Company Description: Weather Trends Intl is the global leader in year-ahead business weather forecasting technology. Clients: Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl's, Sears, AutoZone, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch, JP Morgan, Hershey's and a 100 more. Technology generated 100+ million dollar wins. WTI has been featured on ABC 20/20, World News Tonight and Fox with Gen. Schwarzkopf. WTI is a Red Herring 2009 Finalist.
Nomination Category: Company Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Company of the Year

Nomination Title: Weather Trends International

Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved since January 1 2008 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Weather Trends International emerged from 366 would be competitors as the
global leader in year-ahead business weather guidance for retailers, CPG
companies, suppliers, financial analysts, equity/energy/commodity traders,
agriculture executives, ski resorts and consumers.  WTI has expanded it’s year-
ahead forecasts by day and retail week to 62,000 locations across the entire
globe.  Some of the world’s most respected and successful companies have
leveraged the “weather consumer insights” gleaned from the year-ahead forecast
into million to $100 + million dollar wins using our year-ahead planning portal
MYskeye.com.  Clients include:  Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Kohl’s, Target,
Abercrombie & Fitch, Sears Canada, Loblaw Canada, Town Shoes Canada, ASDA UK,
The Bon-Ton, AutoZone, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch, Lipton, Hershey’s,
3M, Energizer, Sherwin-Williams, JP Morgan and over a 100 hundred other Fortune
5,000 companies.  Even smaller companies such as Killington Ski Resort, The
State Theatre and Chico Nut are leveraging WTI’s forecasting technology for
$50K to $250K profits. 

A recent example of clients using our technology for mega-million dollar
profits include Sherwin-Williams who timed promotional events around the
weather for categories like exterior paint, generating over $13 million in
higher sales.  Other suppliers to Wal-Mart like Black & Decker adjusted
replenishment profiles and experienced sales 86% higher for hedge trimmers in
stores where WTI’s forecast was used to make adjustments, other stores without
the weather inputs were up 21% for a mega-million dollar ROI.  With client
retention over the past 7 years at 96%, WTI’s team of business meteorologists
and industry experts like PhD Michael Ferrari and 17-year Wal-Mart executive
Bruce Firth consistently deliver exceptional value as noted above.  Other best
practice applications for using year-ahead forecasting technology include
almost every phase of business planning to include:

•             Sales planning and forecasting
•             Timing marketing and TV, Radio, Print, Web advertising events
•             Timing season clearance and markdown sales
•             Inventory allocation and replenishment adjustments
•             Production planning
•             Labor scheduling
•             Facility energy budget forecasting
•             Financial reporting
•             Consumer web sites for brand awareness
•             Commodity pricing and purchasing strategies

Weather Trends understands how weather influences consumer shopping behavior
having analyzed 1000s of seasonal categories over the past couple years. But,
it all starts with industry leading year-ahead forecast accuracy of 80% or
better, 5 to 15 times more accurate than planning off last year or simply
assuming “average” weather.  While improving our year-ahead weekly forecasts in
2008 we discovered it was possible to make even more accurate forecasts at a
daily level year-ahead level across the entire globe using a math, statistical
and proprietary secret formula.  This allowed us to expand globally with dozens
of new international clients.  The daily forecasts were independently proven by
a Tesco statistician to be more accurate a year-out than the UK Met Office’s 4-
day forecast! 

DemandTec chose Weather Trends International from 13 other leading weather
companies as the only source to feed their retail pricing optimization platform
in March 2009.

As a result of the above, Weather Trends International is a Red Herring 2009
North America Finalist. 

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/07/05/business/070608emergingtech.txt
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=6520024&page=1
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/DemandTec-Selects-Weather-prnews-14783761.html?.v=1
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/weather-trends-partners-location-managers/story.aspx?guid=%7B7F28CB78-0367-41EC-81D0-B65E09A6391F%7D
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=200331
http://emailwire.com/release/17858-Weather-Trends-International-to-appear-on-Norman-Schwarzkopfs-World-Business-Review-TV-Series-DirecTV-Channel-225-Tuesday-1125-800pm-ET-500pm-PT-.html
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Weather/Story?id=4659265&page=2
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5325634

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

Bill Kirk, formerly the real "Captain Kirk" in the United States Air Force,
successfully went from Air Force weather officer to CEO of a global long-range
weather forecasting company with a client list that includes many of the
world’s biggest retailers and suppliers.  The inventor of WTI's proprietary
long-range forecasting technology brings new meaning to being called
a "visionary" but it's his contagious passion that motivates WTI's leader. 
While he’s listed on 4 U.S. and U.K. patents the real validation for Bill on
the value of the technology is seeing the creative and amazing way’s clients
capitalize on the weather.