Information as a Platform. James Powell Chief Technology Officer, Thomson Reuters

Transcription

1 Information as a Platform James Powell Chief Technology Officer, Thomson Reuters 1

2 Who is Thomson Reuters? Financial & Risk Critical news, information & analytics, enables transactions, and connects trading, investing, financial and corporate professionals. Legal Critical information, decision support tools, software & services to legal, investigation, business and government professionals. Key products include: Eikon, Thomson One, Reuters 3000 Xtra, Datastream, FXall Tax & Accounting Integrated tax compliance and accounting information, software & services for professionals in accounting firms, corporations, law firms and government. Key products include: WestlawNext, FindLaw, Firm Central, Concourse, CLEAR Intellectual Property & Science Comprehensive IP & scientific information, decision support tools & services to enable governments, academia, publishers, corporations & law firms. Key products include: OneSource, Checkpoint, CS Professional Suite, Government Revenue Management Key products include: Web of Knowledge, Cortellis, ScholarOne, Thomson IP Manager, Mark Monitor

3 Platforms: Setting the Context Set of common standards & services that customers can build upon The most successful platforms are: Open Extensible Scalable Modular Community Building

4 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 Financial Tax/Accounting Platforms Real-time data platform Foreign exchange (FX) platform ONESOURCE platform

5 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

6 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; 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

7 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

8 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

9 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

10 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

11 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

12 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. Greater openness Customer & 3 rd party extensions New ways to offer services (Cloud) Manage and scale communities New licensing/ pricing models 12

13 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

14 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

15 Discussion Questions? Insights? 15