Lower Costs and Increased Customer Retention
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Customer Profile
Capital IQ collects and aggregates an immense amount
of data on various sectors, companies, and people within
the investment marketplace. All of this data integrates
with powerful workflow functionality to create a robust, "one-stop" banking
tool.
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Capital IQ's end-user is primarily the investment banker,
who facilitates venture capital, private equity and M&A
transactions.
Situation
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Capital IQ has spent several years and millions of dollars
building their market intelligence, coverage management,
and transaction management platform. Their initial efforts
were focused on the acquisition and selection of crucial
financial information and resources, but the most important
piece of the product was: how would they distribute this
key information to their clients?
Capital IQ needed a reporting component that would enable
their clients to access vast quantities of strategic
information. The solution had to address the unique needs
of their investment banking clients, who demand that
reports be in a familiar layout and have formatting flexibility.
Capital IQ understood that very few of their clients
were experts in customized reporting solutions and, by
using Excel, their clients wouldn't face the added expenses
and time required for retraining.
Since each of their clients had differing data requirements,
it was crucial for Capital IQ to find a reporting tool
that allowed their clients to manipulate the data to
meet their needs.
Capital IQ had to supply up-to-the-minute information
on buyer lists, financial reports, company backgrounds,
etc. Time-critical information, combined with their technology
tools, allowed clients to perform searching, targeting,
analysis, and transaction management.
Solution
Capital IQ initially chose Crystal Decisions for their
reporting solution, but quickly discovered that Crystal
Decisions was too hard to maintain, was difficult to
program and did not provide the flexibility their clients
demanded. SoftArtisans OfficeWriter addressed all of
Crystal Decisions' shortcomings at a fraction of the
cost.
The switch to OfficeWriter helped Capital IQ avoid Crystal
Decisions' client-license limitations, significant per-user
costs and large development expenses. Their OfficeWriter
solution was implemented at one-tenth of the cost of
Crystal Decisions' product. Capital IQ chose OfficeWriter
because of its ease of use, their users' familiarity
with Excel, and its native Excel Web reports in BIFF8
and BIFF7.
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Customer:
New York, NY
www.capitaliq.com
Customer Configuration:
Server: Windows 2000
Database: SQL Server 2000
Client: Excel 97-2000, IE and Netscape
Business Situation:
Capital IQ needed a reporting tool that produced
client-friendly reports; built for demanding
use.
Solution:
Capital IQ used SoftArtisans OfficeWriter as the
backbone of an external reporting system, providing
comprehensive and up-to-the minute reports to
their clients, allowing them to make informed
decision on their investments.
Benefits:
Complete user satisfaction due to
familiar, flexible, easy to use Microsoft Excel
format.
High performance and scalable system.
Ease of development brought product
to market faster.
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With OfficeWriter for Excel, Capital IQ's clients are
not required to be experts in a customized reporting
solution. Since switching to OfficeWriter, Capital IQ
clients are enjoying how easy it is to read and modify
their Excel spreadsheets. Excel reports are available
to their clients for every step of the deal-making process,
making investment banking more productive and less burdensome.
Running OfficeWriter for Excel on three servers, Excel
reports are now used throughout their company's product,
giving the customer a choice of eight types of spreadsheets.
Capital IQ has not encountered performance issues, despite
interacting with over 1,300 active users that generate
hundreds of reports each day. Since Microsoft Excel is
not required on the server, Capital IQ never faces the
performance penalties and instability associated with
multiple instances of the Microsoft Excel object on a
Web server.
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Benefits
With OfficeWriter for Excel, Capital IQ's return-on-investment
can be measured through time-savings, lower costs, and customer
retention. Robust reporting is a requirement of any product
seeking to serve this marketplace. The time saved in development
meant Capital IQ was able to meet their deadline in delivering
their product to market. This is crucial when working within
the volatile investment industry where timing is critical.
Capital IQ avoided high-priced reporting solutions such as
Crystal Decisions or a comparable solution. Customer retention
was evident through the positive responses received from users,
who appreciate the high performance, ease of use and flexibility
of OfficeWriter. And finally, the speed of applications developed
with OfficeWriter allows Capital IQ to quickly identify potential
investors/buyers involved in a transaction and then, without
delay, to facilitate a deal.
Capital IQ was also impressed with the support they received
from SoftArtisans. In fact, as part of a key product release,
Capital IQ required some customized formatting that was very
important to their largest client. Within days, the SoftArtisans
development team added this functionality to OfficeWriter for
Capital IQ.
By utilizing OfficeWriter for Excel, Capital IQ is providing
value to their clients which will help them become the standard
platform for investment bankers. |
