IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), the leading global source of critical information and insight, today announced that three companies were honored with IHS SPECTRUM Excellence Awards during concurrent events in Washington, DC.

The prestigious IHS SPECTRUM award program celebrates organizations and individuals around the world who leverage advanced information, analytics and expertise to make better decisions and achieve their business goals. Two winners – AIG and XL Catlin – received their awards during an onstage celebration at the IHS Economics & Country Risk Conference while another winner, Monsanto, was recognized during the IHS Pricing & Purchasing Summit.

“In today’s hyper-competitive global markets, industry leaders are looking for every opportunity to gain an advantage by using best-in-class information and insight to address challenges at every level of the organization, from high-level strategy to daily operations,” said KC Chartrand, chair of the IHS SPECTRUM Excellence Award Committee. “This week, we are proud to recognize the extraordinary success of world-class companies that are making key financial decisions based on outstanding use of information, analytics and expertise from IHS.”

The IHS Economics & Country Risk Conference and IHS Pricing & Purchasing Summit have brought together hundreds of senior decision makers from a host of industry sectors worldwide. The three new IHS SPECTRUM Excellence Award winners include:

  • American International Group (AIG) provides insurance coverage to more than 90 million customers worldwide, including commercial clients ranging from mid-size companies to 99.6 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Tracking so many risks requires intensive, comprehensive geo-political research. AIG saves significant time and money by relying on IHS to provide underwriters with access to a wealth of information – for example, geo-political risk scores for every 500m2 sector of the earth’s surface and risk assessments for 6,400+ terrorist targets in 90 countries. AIG analysts use IHS data to run their own advanced risk models and provide clients with decisions regarding risks that AIG wants to write and policy pricing, as well as offering additional insights regarding unidentified risks and mitigation alternatives.
  • Monsanto is one of the world’s leading agriculture companies and its global procurement team plays a key role in helping the company provide solutions to farmers around the globe. A few years ago, that team turned to IHS for consistent market intelligence to support planning across many categories of direct and indirect expenditures. Armed with insights into raw material costs, supplier dynamics and market trends, Monsanto saved $680 million in costs (beating its goal by almost 35 percent) while mitigating supply risks for farmers. The team saved $9 million by moving to a new supplier, cut $4 million by integrating management of logistics into procurement, and mitigated cost fluctuations with a hedging strategy. These and other gains have benefited both Monsanto’s customers and shareholders.
  • XL Catlin provides property and casualty insurance to companies around the world – from Fortune 1000 corporations to mid-sized businesses – as the largest Specialty insurer in terms of volume of business written and a top-five provider in aerospace, political risk, crisis management and fine art/specie markets. After working with IHS for a decade, its Political Risk and Trade Credit (PRTC) team recently brought greater consistency and efficiency to its risk selections by making IHS its primary source of geo-political risk information. As a result, XL Catlin reduced underwriting costs by 20 percent and the PRTC team is now viewed as a “center of excellence,” fueling growth by giving underwriters insights to write risk in areas where they might otherwise hold back.

To read the full case studies for these three new award winners, as well as dozens of other industry leaders that have been honored in the past, visit www.IHS.com/SPECTRUM-Awards.

“We appreciate our new IHS SPECTRUM Excellence Award winners sharing their stories,” Chartrand said. “AIG, Monsanto and XL Catlin have further demonstrated their industry leadership and good corporate citizenship by allowing other organizations around the world to learn from their experiences – bringing better information and analysis to bear in making important financial decisions.”

The IHS SPECTRUM Excellence Awards are part of the IHS Customer Recognition program. For more information, please contact IHS-SPECTRUM-Excellence-Awards@ihs.com.

About IHS (www.ihs.com)

IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of insight, analytics and expertise in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape. Businesses and governments in more than 150 countries around the globe rely on the comprehensive content, expert independent analysis and flexible delivery methods of IHS to make high-impact decisions and develop strategies with speed and confidence. IHS has been in business since 1959 and became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, USA, IHS is committed to sustainable, profitable growth and employs about 8,800 people in 32 countries around the world.

IHS is a registered trademark of IHS Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. © 2015 IHS Inc. All rights reserved.