How interactions are managed today

Before jumping into how the iiXnet changes how participants interact with each other in a fully networked environment, it may be worth pausing to consider how interactions are managed today.

Buyside participants: How do you currently manage the following tasks;

• Finding sellside contact details: do you look for the last email they sent and hope they have an email signature? Write down numbers from voicemail messages? Manually update a spreadsheet? Work from memory?
• Finding listed company contact details: the last email method? Call the head office number from the company profile in IRESS/Bloomberg? Spreadsheets? Sort through a stack of business cards? Call/email a broker for the details?
• Managing company presentations and broker conferences: Do you get emails from investor relations detailing the presentation and put into your calendar? Ever miss any in an overflowing inbox? Do brokers send through the details? Ever not get the email from the company because IR didn’t have you on the list?
• The reporting season nightmare: How do you manage the calendar of all the result presentations, conference calls, broker lunches and small group briefings that seem to increase in number every reporting season? Hundreds of emails from companies and brokers? Event ‘summaries’ from each broker showing their events for the season, all in completely different formats (emails, word documents, pdfs, excel spreadsheets)? Even if you know what is on when and where, are you certain you RSVP’d yes to the ones you are attending and no to those on which you have a conflict?
  

Sellside participants: How do you manage the following tasks;

• Managing your buyside call lists: No doubt your firm has a state of the art CRM system to manage the task of contacting clients. It probably has features the iiXnet could only dream of. So how often are the contact details wrong? How often has the client changed coverage responsibilities without the CRM reflecting the change? Who is responsible to keep the information current (research, sales, management etc)?
• Tracking changes to buyside responsibilties: How do you know who covers what on the buyside? Client sends an email (word file, pdf, excel spreadsheet)? What about if client A allocates stock coverage by sector, but client B splits sectors across analysts so each covers a single stock? When do you find out about the change, in real time as it happens, or in six months at the next account review?
• Account management: How do you know who to call on what research product (given the issues above)? How do you know when your client has added a new analyst or if existing analysts change responsibility? Ever find out quite a few months after you probably should have that changes have been made (ie: after your competitors have known for six months and have been providing service accordingly).
• Finding listed company contact details: the last email method? Call the head office number from the company profile in IRESS/Bloomberg? Spreadsheets? Sort through a stack of business cards?
• Managing company presentations: Do you get emails from investor relations detailing the presentation and put into your calendar? Ever miss any in an overflowing inbox? Ever not get the email from the company because IR didn’t have you on the list?
• Reporting season: How do you manage the calendar of all the result presentations and conference calls every reporting season? Spend too much time communicating with clients confirming basic info such as result presentation details, hosted lunch dates and times?
• Publishing and distribution of research: Once the research is written, how are you sending it out (email with attachment/link, firm website, 3rd party distribution via Bloomberg, First Call)? Any differentiation here? Any control issues? Are you sure that everyone who you want to receive the research is getting it (ie: are your call lists and client responsibilities accurate and current)?
  

Listed Company participants – particularly Investor Relations: How do you manage the following tasks;

• Tracking Institutional Interest and Analyst Coverage: A sophisticated CRM is probably employed to manage the task, but how do you find out who is interested in your stock? With the increasing number of small boutique and hedge funds how do you track them all? What about the increasing level of personnel turnover within the finance community? Wait for them to contact you and ask to be put on the mailing list? Work from the same list of institutions you always have? Have an investment bank keep you informed? Rely on your public relations firm? If so, how do they do it?
• Finding new investors: Secondary to ensuring all those with a current interest are receiving effective communication is finding new investors or analysts who may have a future interest in your stock. This is particularly valuable for smaller companies. How do out find the potential interested investor? Investment Bank?
• Managing company presentations, conference calls and events: How are upcoming events communicated to the investment community? Email to the current investor relations database? Announcement to the exchange? Using an intermediary (Investment Bank, Public Relations firm)?