Clear Decisions: Clearly an Improvement

Recently, IMS introduced a new interface for its workhorse crosstab software, “Clear Decisions”. The response in the room was unanimously positive, with one junior planner whispering in awe “It’s….beautiful.” What’s so great about “Clear Decisions”? Lots of things: Rather than having to type in reams of coding, and sweating over whether or not your brackets are in the right place, the software lets you drag and drop your selections from the codebook half of the screen into the crosstab half, and gives you the and/or choices right on the screen. Results are displayed instantly, so no more waiting until the run is processed to see if your sample is large enough. In the “Smart Views” screen you can quickly highlight the data visually, using colour, gradients or icons. The preference in the room was for the green, yellow and red smiley faces. What does this mean for you? Since the new software operates much more like a Windows environment, users can spend less time learning how to use the system and more time delving into insights and using those insights to build strategy. Currently, only Crosstab and Cost Ranker are available in Clear Decisions: IMS plans to roll out the other modules over the next few years.