Alliance for Auto Industry Specialists Wards and LMC

Automotive industry forecasting and BI companies Wards Intelligence and LMC Automotive have announced an alliance, including data sharing and integrated sales efforts.

The partners say the deal brings together Wards Intelligence's comprehensive automotive business insights, analysis and consulting with LMC's independent global automotive forecasts for vehicle sales, production, powertrain and electrification. The two will also collaborate on industry events.

Wards is based in Southfield, MI and is part of London-based information services group Informa. Its services include a premium Subscribers web resource and suite of customizable reporting tools; and the Wards Intelligence Outlook and Focus Conferences. LMC is headquartered in Oxford, UK and employs analysts in Asia, Europe and North America, and seven years ago it acquired the automotive forecasting division of JD Power and Associates. The company works for car and truck makers, component manufacturers and suppliers, financial, logistics and government institutions; and is part of the agribusiness consultancy LMC group.

John Sousanis (pictured), MD of Wards Intelligence, says the company's new partner is 'a company with truly global perspective and a shared customer-first culture', and believes the deal will offer client 'unrivaled analysis and forecasts of the rapidly evolving automotive market'. Jeff Schuster, LMC Automotive's President, Americas Operations and Global Vehicle Forecasts, says the partnership 'will enable two of the industry's top analytics companies to leverage each other's core expertise in the automotive sector to strengthen real-time analysis of current and future trends in a very dynamic automotive industry'.

Web sites: www.wardsintelligence.com and www.lmc-auto.com .