Information as a Platform James Powell Chief Technology Officer, Thomson Reuters 1
Who is Thomson Reuters? Financial & Risk Legal Critical news, information & Critical information, decision analytics, enables transactions, support tools, software & and connects trading, investing, services to legal, investigation, financial and corporate business and government professionals. professionals. Key products include: Eikon, Thomson One, Reuters Key products include: WestlawNext, FindLaw, Firm 3000 Xtra, Datastream, FXall Central, Concourse, CLEAR Intellectual Property Tax & Accounting & Science Integrated tax compliance and Comprehensive IP & scientific accounting information, software information, decision support & services for professionals in tools & services to enable accounting firms, corporations, governments, academia, publishers, law firms and government. corporations & law firms. Key products include: OneSource, Checkpoint, CS Key products include: Web of Knowledge, Cortellis, Professional Suite, Government Revenue Management ScholarOne, Thomson IP Manager, Mark Monitor
Platforms: Setting the Context Set of common standards & services that customers can build upon The most successful platforms are : Community Scalable Modular Open Extensible Building
History of platforms at Thomson Reuters • Industry position led to “accidental” creation of platforms • Platforms allow us to provide flexible tools to meet needs of our various customers & industries • Focus on product platforms –Evolved with industry trends and customer expectations • A few examples show evolution and key lessons learned: Industry Platforms Financial •Real-time data platform •Foreign exchange (FX) platform Tax/Accounting •ONESOURCE platform
Real-Time Platform: RIC, IDN & RMDS RIC – Reuters Instrument Code • Ticker-like code to identify financial instruments & indices IDN – Integrated Data Network • Originally designed in 1980’s - Principal mechanism for delivery of real-time information worldwide RMDS – Reuters Market Data System • Open market data distribution system handles tens of millions of updates per second (first datafeed sold - late 1980s) • Integrates, distributes & adds value to information from/about the market. Sent directly to client sites allowing them to control their data feeds 5
Real Time Platform: Strengths Strengths • IDN/datafeeds, RICs and the RMDS platform became a powerful combination for the financial industry • Large developer community attracted by RMDS/IDN combination – 5,000 registered developers; 300 3 rd party developer companies – Well-documented consistent data models – API access with guaranteed backward capability - 50,000 applications built against APIs • First mover advantage and the success of the platform gave a clear competitive advantage to RMDS 6
Real Time Platform: Opportunities Opportunities • Open platform subject to proprietary API licensing; not open source • Extensions done by one client not available to others • Outdated model: Single client licensing and deployed on-premise software 7
Foreign Exchange (FX) Platform • First in the market in 1981 – leading FX trading platform • One of the largest communities of financial professionals across 120 countries – Peer-to-peer conversation – 1.5 mil conversations per week • Gradually moved from proprietary technology to standard
FX Platform: Strengths & Opportunities Strengths • Large and well-developed community • Strong governance established trust in the platform Opportunities • Per user licensing model: Prone to competitive attack • Lack of openness & extensibility for customers/3 rd parties 9
Recent Example: ONESOURCE • ONESOURCE suite of web-based solutions to manage entire tax workflow end-to-end • Over 50,000 users & 20 products integrated into ONESOURCE solution • Originally designed for corporate tax; recognized as leverageable platform – ONESOURCE Firm Edition created to serve Big 4 accounting firms – Platform used by three of the Big 4 & nine of Top 10 accounting firms 10
ONESOURCE: Strengths & Opportunities Strengths • Strong platform can be scaled and leveraged for multiple customer bases and geographies • Completely modular: Customizable based on work flows • Integrates easily with 3 rd party applications Opportunities • Become a more open platform • Future focus : Building a community for tax professionals 11
Lessons Learned • Building platforms by design is difficult • Once de facto platforms exist, need to nurture them to manage and accelerate value creation. • Managing & leveraging platforms must be thought through and resourced. • Retool/rethink organization & business models. New New ways Manage and Customer licensing/ Greater to offer scale & 3 rd party pricing openness services communities extensions models (Cloud) 12
Looking Ahead: Trends and Opportunities • Customer expectations are changing • Greater push for open platforms/standards • Value associated with building powerful networks • New technologies lead to new ways of providing information and new services – Consumerization of information – Lower costs/greater ease of entry Our challenge: Continue to adapt our platforms and business models to this changing landscape 13
Challenges for Thomson Reuters • Shift toward becoming a content provider and platform owner • Large industry incumbent makes change difficult • Willingness to cannibalize some existing businesses to build out new platform businesses • Design new products/initiatives as platforms = challenging and resource-intensive • Comfort level with building truly open platforms 14
Discussion • Questions? Insights? 15
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