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 OfficeWriter Home > Customers Home > officewriter-38.aspx |
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Lower Costs and Increased Customer
Retention:
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.
Capital IQ's end-user is primarily the investment banker, who facilitates
venture capital, private equity and M&A transactions.
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| 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.
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| Solution: |
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| 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.
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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New York, NY
www.capitaliq.com
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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:
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Complete user satisfaction due
to familiar, flexible, easy to use Microsoft
Excel format. |
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High performance and scalable system. |
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Ease of development
ought product to market
faster. |
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 ...It
is imperative that we provide our clients crucial data
in a universally-accepted format like Excel. SoftArtisans
OfficeWriter allowed us to avoid substantial per-user
costs and development costs associated with Crystal Decisions. |
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William
Murphy
Chief Technology Officer
Capital IQ |
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| Benefits: |
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| 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. |
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