Achieve These 3 Goals for Financial Services Organizations With Timely, Well-Researched Business Intelligence

Like companies in other industries, financial services organizations share some critical goals—namely, saving money, fueling growth and protecting against risk. But, that’s where the sharing ends. After all, your aim is to achieve these goals more quickly than your competitors and then sustain that lead.

What does it take to get ahead of the pack? Research for financial professionals can help uncover business intelligence that enables you to map out a strategy for success and to make smart moves when circumstances change.

Use market analysis reports and company insights

Market analysis reports can help financial professionals quickly understand the business landscape. Market analysis reports typically include:

• Size of the market both in volume and in value
• Customer demographics, segments and buying patterns
• Key competitors in the market
• Economic environment including potential barriers to entry
• Regulations that could impact the business

Another key source of business intelligence includes company profiles. Research technology like Nexis® for Finance enables you to generate a detailed company report in just a few clicks and provides:

• An at-a-glance company overview
• Financial, competitive, and stock information
• Links to company reports from leading sources such as Mergerstat® and Standard & Poor’s®
• Analyst reports and competitive positioning
• Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property
• News articles covering the subject company

Reviewing company reports helps you evaluate potential customers or business partners, competitors, merger or acquisition targets or other investment opportunities.

How to interpret market analysis reports and company profiles

In combination, market and company reports shorten the time you must spend on research by wrapping up crucial details in one convenient report. Rather than spending hours tracking down details on a market or company, you can quickly focus on deeper research and analysis based on information provided in the report. For example, mention of regulations in a market could spur additional research into the regulation and past enforcement actions to better understand risk exposure. The reports also enhance your ability to:

• Keep track of trends and future markets
• Identify areas for expansion
• Empower colleagues across your organization to develop effective strategies for achieving business goals

Armed with this information, you can make data-driven decisions that deliver measurable benefits, including the cost and time savings that result from more efficient, effective research process.

Identify 'whitespace' opportunities

An article by the National Center for the Middle Market—a collaboration between The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business and Chubb—notes that “Identifying the ‘whitespace’ in the market is an essential component to building a successful brand and stimulating business growth. Exploring the competitive landscape and identifying whitespace that your brand can ‘own’ provides an opportunity to recalibrate your business focus, determine what makes your offering unique and valuable to customers, and strengthen your brand.”

Nexis for Finance brings together more than 40,000 news and business sources critical for success. Print, broadcast, and web news from publishers around the world, along with industry journals and thought leader blogs, can help you track emerging consumer and industry trends. A deep news archive further enhances your understanding of the business landscape. You can see how the media has covered relevant topics, competitors, or the industry over time, helping you anticipate potential threats or opportunities based on historical data.

For added convenience, you can create Alerts—delivered on the schedule you choose—to keep up with the latest competitor mentions in the news and press releases to understand the moves a rival is making. Reviewing negative news mentions can likewise give you insights into competitor weak spots, giving you an opportunity to overtake and outperform your competition.

And, you can keep up with critical activities taking place across your industry or within a market.

• Follow mergers and acquisitions to understand how consolidation could impact your business, either by leaving a gap that your organization can take advantage of or by creating a more powerful rival.
• Track executive moves within customer organizations and across your industry to respond proactively to potential risks, such as a potential deal breakdown should the executive championing it leave a customer organization.
• Review the intellectual property of competitors patents, copyrights, etc.) you can understand competitor priorities and anticipate opportunities that may come in the future. Likewise, it can help you determine whether a company represents a good investment opportunity.

Ultimately, news and company information help your organization develop strategies based on the priorities of customer and competitor organizations and interpret signals to inform buy/sell decisions, optimize marketing and sales efforts, and capitalize on competitor weaknesses to grow your business.

Protect against bad investments by analyzing company and industry data and emerging trends

Market volatility means that financial professionals need to keep a continuous handle on what’s going on across the financial services industry. How has a potential investment target performed in the past? What economic factors are influencing your industry? Where is the potential for disruption greatest?

While reputation can be one positive investment signal to consider, it shouldn’t be the only one. Research by the CFA Institute and Morningstar found that “great companies are often overvalued simply because they are great companies.” Confident investment decisions require a comprehensive understanding of a company, rather than a more superficial view based on an organization’s reputation.

• Industry reports provide insights into what’s happening across the industry with your competitors.
• Corporate financials and legal histories help you see if a company you’re considering for investment or partnership has shown signs of financial instability or has a litigious past that could suggest future lawsuits.
• News coverage and regulatory information, such as notices of enforcement actions for compliance violations, can also give you insights into potential risks ahead.

Use Nexis for Financial Services Organizations

Research for financial professionals can help you see past the bells and whistles that attract investor attention, to more substantial criteria that can lead you to informed investments—the undervalued bargains rather than the overvalued “popularity contest” winners.

What business intelligence do you need to uncover to help your organization maintain a performance lead now and in the future?

Arrange a personalized demo to see how Nexis for Finance can put research for financial professionals on a fast track so you can take the pole position and outperform your competition.