Information as a Platform James Powell Chief Technology Officer, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Information as a Platform

James Powell Chief Technology Officer, Thomson Reuters

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Who is Thomson Reuters?

Tax & Accounting Financial & Risk

Integrated tax compliance and accounting information, software & services for professionals in accounting firms, corporations, law firms and government.

Intellectual Property & Science Legal

Comprehensive IP & scientific information, decision support tools & services to enable governments, academia, publishers, corporations & law firms. Critical information, decision support tools, software & services to legal, investigation, business and government professionals. Critical news, information & analytics, enables transactions, and connects trading, investing, financial and corporate professionals.

Key products include: Eikon, Thomson One, Reuters 3000 Xtra, Datastream, FXall Key products include: WestlawNext, FindLaw, Firm Central, Concourse, CLEAR Key products include: OneSource, Checkpoint, CS Professional Suite, Government Revenue Management Key products include: Web of Knowledge, Cortellis, ScholarOne, Thomson IP Manager, Mark Monitor

Platforms: Setting the Context

Open Extensible Scalable Modular Community Building

Set of common standards & services that customers can build upon The most successful platforms are:

History of platforms at Thomson Reuters

• Industry position led to “accidental” creation of platforms
• Platforms allow us to provide flexible tools to meet needs
• f 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

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Real Time Platform: Strengths

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• 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 3rd 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 Strengths

Real Time Platform: Opportunities

• Open platform subject to proprietary API licensing; not
• pen source
• Extensions done by one client not available to others
• Outdated model: Single client licensing and deployed
• n-premise software

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Opportunities

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

• Large and well-developed community
• Strong governance established trust in the platform
• Per user licensing model: Prone to competitive attack
• Lack of openness & extensibility for customers/3rd parties

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Strengths Opportunities

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

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ONESOURCE: Strengths & Opportunities

• Strong platform can be scaled and leveraged for multiple

customer bases and geographies

• Completely modular: Customizable based on work flows
• Integrates easily with 3rd party applications
• Become a more open platform
• Future focus: Building a community for tax professionals

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Opportunities Strengths

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.

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Manage and scale communities

Greater

• penness

Customer & 3rd party extensions New ways to offer services (Cloud) New licensing/ pricing models

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

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Our challenge: Continue to adapt our platforms and business models to this changing landscape

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

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Discussion

• Questions? Insights?

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