Financial Insights: Custom Research and Consulting

Financial Insights designs and delivers highly customized, expert advice for financial institutions and solution providers that have specialized research needs. Our consulting professionals have extensive industry knowledge and project management experience within all segments of financial services. Project teams are composed of specialized consultants, analysts, and project managers who together bring insight and experience to each engagement. Our teams help clients develop business strategies, fine-tune product development and pricing, define and implement marketing campaigns, and evaluate joint ventures and acquisitions. Project teams also draw upon the extensive global resources of IDC to help develop sophisticated primary surveys, build analysis models, and tap into technology market expertise in nearly 50 countries. Together, we provide clients with custom-designed quantitative and qualitative research that examines end-user behavior using a variety of tested survey tools including executive interviews, Web and telephone surveys, and focus groups.

Research Project Types

We provide independent, expert council on decisions related to entering new geographies, developing new product sets, assessing local competitors, understanding local market product requirements, and creating market-entry messages.

Global companies weighing market opportunities use Financial Insights to understand and compare regional and country-level geographic IT spending characteristics, trends, and direction. We also help evaluate competitive market shares. Our clients use this information to make marketing and resource decisions.

During a typical sales cycle, institutions now expect an economic-based analysis of the benefits a new technology investment can deliver. We have models that quantify and measure the likely economic impact a new technology will bring to a financial institution.

We develop customer-facing marketing collateral to educate and demonstrate our clients' value propositions. These outreach efforts include vendor salesforce training, sales team educational "knowledge briefs," Webcast presentations, reviews, and commentary on internally developed brochures and presentations.

An objective and authoritative publication developed in collaboration with a client, a white paper is often part of an integrated marketing campaign. White papers are designed to meet a client's specific needs and typically are used to introduce products or technologies to the market, define or validate an emerging market, educate potential buyers on a value proposition, or showcase successful customer implementations.

Representative Custom Research Engagements

Actual custom research projects have been as varied as the business challenges our clients face. Past engagements have lasted from two weeks to six months. Financial Insights' singular knowledge of the global financial services industry provides informed, educated, and actionable data and opinion to our clients.

Key Analysis

Typical consulting engagements have included the following projects:

We assisted a major global stock exchange in a CEO-level review of its technology strategy. We worked directly with the internal technology arm of the exchange, assessing its internal IT support pricing relative to "free market" costs, and presented the "best IT strategy practices" of other stock exchanges to the board of directors.

We conducted a multiclient study of the implications of the Check 21 legislation and how it would effect the business behavior of bankers, billers, and consumers. For this research, we designed and executed two primary studies: a focused series of executive interviews of senior management at banks and core banking outsourcers, and a larger survey of 250 billers from a cross-section of industries.

We developed an educational training program for a global technology company's financial services industry salesforce. We wrote an introductory training manual, which served as an introduction to the significant business issues facing the banking, insurance, and capital markets.

Engaged by a global software company to help its Internet business group, we surveyed payment behaviors in 20 countries. We developed a Web-based consumer survey tailored specifically for each country analyzed, and we captured and assessed critical behavioral and intentional data that our client used to guide its product development and market-entry strategy.

Benefits to Custom Research and Consulting Clients

The extensive knowledge level of our analysts provides clients with specific advice on technology-related strategies and subsequent application direction. In addition to custom research, we offer an array of market intelligence and research products and services to further your market knowledge on a continual basis. Our Financial Service Advisory Tracks (FAST) cover Banking Services (Consumer Banking & Credit, Payments, and Corporate Banking), Capital Markets (Institutional Trading & Investment Management, and Retail Brokerage & Investing), and all aspects of Risk Management. In addition, consulting clients receive:

• DISCOUNTED ADMISSION to our annual Financial Insights client conference and/or IDC's Directions conference
• COMPLIMENTARY INVITATIONS to monthly interactive forums in which clients receive additional insight about our research and strategies, have the opportunity to interact directly with analysts, and listen to their peers' questions

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