Open Password – Friday June 11, 2021
#933
Steep templates for corporate success – Eagle Alpha – Sabine Graumann – Graumann Consulting Services – Emmet Kilduff – Alternative Data – Business Model – Freemium Database – Datasets – Quality Testing – SMEs – Data Driven Companies – Information Professionals – Data Owners – German Patent and Trade Mark Office – LinkUp – Data Hunters – Data Engineers – Data Scientists – Data Analysts – Pricing – Expert Networks –
Postbank Digital Study 2021 – Pandemic – Virtual Meetings – Internet Rituals – Thomas Brosch – Accessibility – Age Groups – Streaming
Steep assists for corporate success
Eagle Alpha: Connecting
the Universe of Alternative Data
Sabine Graumann (SG), owner of Graumann Consulting-Services and head of the German Information Brokerage Task Force interviewed Emmett Kilduff (EK), CEO Eagle Alpha. Kilduff was the keynote speaker on “Steilvorlagen 2020”.
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Eagle Alpha’s business model for vendors and buyers is well elaborated.
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Sabine Graumann, Graumann Consulting Services: Questions…
SG : What is your business model? As far as I understood Eagle Alpha is a vendor and an aggregator of external datasets. Who are your clients? Which services do you offer?
EK : We are working with 1,400 datasets and more than 1,000 owners of data today. We are constantly discovering new datasets and providers. We partner with the owners of these datasets to monetize their data in three steps.
1st: We advise them on the dollar opportunity (discovery phase).
2nd: We help them to enter the market by outlining how they should structure and build their datasets (productization). 3rd: We support them to sell their datasets to the market (go-to-market).
From a buyers’ perspective you can work with Eagle Alpha in three different ways.
1st: We can help you to design your data strategy and ensure it stays best-in-class.
2nd: We have a subscription offering which helps you to understand and discover how to work with external data (Eagle Alpha Freemium database). We ensure that our clients efficiently find and prioritize the best datasets. 3rd: We have an advisory service where you tell us our top business questions and we match them with our datasets. We can be your data science team if you do not have any internal capacities to turn data into insights.
From the financial business model perspective, we charge for subscriptions to the datasets.
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Convincing C-level executives of the benefits of external data sources is a major challenge
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SG : One of the researcher’s problem is the acceptance of external datasets from C-level executives. How are the results accepted by C-level executives – particularly if the results contain unpleasant news?
EK : I think the companies that are using external data are mostly innovative companies where the results are understood at Board and Executive level. For sure, there are also companies that do not want to explore external data and that prefer to stick to their current strategy. However, companies like McKinsey have shown that the companies which are leveraging external data are more successful in the market. These companies use more (internal and) external data sources and possess a greater range of inputs and analysis for decision making, leading to improved results. This is one of the major reasons which may encourage companies to look at external data.
In addition, there are a couple of possibilities to help C-level executives to feel more comfortable when using external data sources. One is quality testing. Eagle Alpha spent two years to build a data quality testing tool in conjunction with 10 hedge funds. Quality tests on the datasets give our clients more comfort.
But there are also “softer” things to consider. We have long-lasting business relationships. We know our vendors for a long time. To a certain extent our vendors are huge billion dollar corporates who are selling their data. That can provide comfort to our buyers, too.
These are just some examples which make C-suite levels more comfortable.
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SMEs can profit from external datasets more easily than large companies.
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SG: Do you experience that not only data driven companies such as consultancies and large companies use external data? What about small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?
EK: I think in some cases SMEs are better users of external data because they are more nimble or flexible. If you think of large companies we can understand that it takes some more time to change their culture to become a data driven company. We have corporate clients who are huge global companies, but we also serve smaller companies where the CEO wants to become more data driven and sees external data as a competitive edge.
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Customized data advisory services to access the best data hidden in a huge amount of datasets.
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SG: Do you have any suggestions for business segment information, eg for segments such as energy or machine engineering, etc.? I am thinking on providers such as IHS for automotive.
EK: This is exactly the type of questions we love to be asked as part of our (Freemium Database) discovery solution. This offering is intended for customers who want a trustworthy source to start discovering alternative datasets. It contains complete profiles, sample data and supporting documentation for over 1,400 alternative datasets. If necessary, our data hunters can advise our clients on the type of datasets that are relevant and support them through a customized data advisory service.
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Eagle Alpha makes the difference: vendors with global scope and top quality.
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… and answers: Emmet Kilduff, Eagle Alpha
SG : We always need the information professional to present the data to the board rooms, to rate the quality of the data and to explain how to interpret the data of your vendors. Who are they? Can you please name some of them? Are your vendors market research companies such as Nielsen, GfK, Kantar, etc., or other companies?
EK : At present, we have around 1,000 data owners. The datasets are typically not provided by global market research organizations because there would be no more real value to a corporate in Germany or in the US if Eagle Alpha would offer the same data which clients can buy from these organizations, too.
Let me give you two examples to explain who our vendors are. I have shown you one sample from the patent industry. In that case our vendor is the German patent site (from the German Patent and Trade Mark Office), one of the leading patent providers that we found across the world and with whom we work for a number of years. Regarding employee data we are using a company based in Minneapolis in the US, called LinkUp. This is our licensing partner for employment data since more than 15 years. LinkUp is crawling the job portals of corporate websites.
SG: Are most of your vendors based in the US? Do you have a good mix of national/international providers in your portfolio?
EK: Approximately 55% of the vendors in our database are based in the US. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t work at global scale. A good example is a satellite company in San Francisco providing us with global data on every country in the world. We are also cooperating with a trade company based in New York analyzing global trade data around the world, ie between the US and Germany. As we are based in Europe, we have a good database of European datasets. Regions or countries such as APAC, Asia and China are critical for almost every company. We have a so-called “data hunting team” in place which hunts for the best data for our buyers and which keeps us continuously up to date with new providers.
SG: Who are these hunters? Who is working in your company? Do any information professionals work in your company ?
EK: We have four different teams working on the product side. First, we have data hunters, secondly we have data engineers who help to prepare the data for data testing, third we have data scientists who can provide evidence and value data. Finally, we have data analysts who know how to speak and communicate to our buyer clients and who can describe and discuss actionable insights with them.
SG: Have you experienced fraud by vendors? A vendor may claim to have the researched data, but the data may just be fake.
EK: No. I think the reason is, we insist that every vendor offers Eagle Alpha a free trial of up to 90 days. During that trial period we have enough time to do the data quality testing. We haven’t heard about that.
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Prices vary according to the complexity of clients’ business needs.
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SG: Can you please give us some information regarding the pricing? Are you probably able to indicate some price ranges for the case studies you have shown in your presentation at Steilvorlagen?
EK: The average dataset costs that we have seen in 2020 is 56,000 US dollars for an annual license. Consumer transaction data is the most expensive data – in some cases you can get high six figures – 800,000 to 900,000 US dollars per annum. But there are lot of datasets in the 20,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 or 60,000 US dollars range per annum. If you want to outsource the work to our data science team, then we have an hourly rate or offer a package. If you want to profit from our data discovery solution tool (Freemium database) to better understand which data is outside in the market it is 30,000 US dollars per annum.
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Eagle Alpha uses appropriate technologies to identify experts or influencers.
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SG: You have explained to us that your 1,400 datasets are split into 28 data categories. One of the categories is “expert networks”. What is hidden behind this category?
EK: Eagle Alpha can use appropriate technologies to identify experts or influencers on specific topics and then to look at their expertise and analyze their online content. Example: If you want to identify experts in cancer drug development, you are able to identify experts, for example by using natural language (NLPF) processing technology– i.e. analyzing all of their content by volumes of mentions, fields of expertise in research and development , Etc.
The last major innovation in the hedge fund industry was the introduction of expert networks in the late 1990s. The last big innovation of the last 10 years is “big data” or “alternative data” which has started during the last 10 years. Eagle Alpha is the pioneer connecting the universe of alternative data.
SG: Thank you very much indeed.
Further information: Emmett Kilduff, CEO Eagle Alpha, emmett.kilduff@eaglealpha.com or visit the website: eaglealpha.com
Postbank digital study 2021
Internet helps through the pandemic
Virtual meetings with friends
and family are becoming a regular ritual
(Postbank) People in Germany have moved a large part of their social life to the virtual world. The representative Postbank digital study 2021 provides the figures: 74 percent of Germans maintain their social life in this way during the lockdown
Contacts. During the Corona crisis, 50 percent also spend their free time on the Internet and attend online sports courses or music events. Video calls and other digital meetings are increasingly replacing personal encounters, including among friends
the family: For 43 percent they are already a fixed ritual. Among 18 to 39 year olds, 59 percent have now gotten used to virtual contact.
Of the younger people, 68 percent say that the Internet helps them to continue to run digital gaming events, music lessons and sports courses online. “Modern technologies are currently a blessing for many. The majority in our country are happy to be able to keep in touch with friends and family via the Internet or even pursue hobbies there, despite the lockdown and infection protection,” says Thomas Brosch, Head of Digital Sales at Postbank . “For a minority, the Internet is currently a curse, because those who are overwhelmed with the technology and don’t know their way around feel like they are
quickly socially isolated. That’s why it’s important to provide an easily accessible offering for this target group.” Almost one in three people say they don’t spend enough time with apps and others
to be familiar with programs in order to be able to participate in virtual meetings. 26 percent are overwhelmed with the necessary know-how and 24 percent do not have the technical requirements at home. This also affects many younger people: 40 of those under 40 feel that way
percent socially disconnected. Outdated devices such as laptops or cell phones as well as a slow internet connection cut them off from homeschooling options, sports courses and chats with friends.
Communication via video calls has increased significantly, especially among 18 to 39 year olds: 45 percent of them report increased use within the past twelve months. Just as many are focusing on increased streaming of films, series, etc. during the pandemic.
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Corona leads to news junkies
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Since the outbreak of the pandemic, checking the news has become a daily ritual for 43 percent. General surfing in search of information has also increased – 35 percent of all respondents and 41 percent of digital natives have expanded their surfing habits during the Corona crisis. Those who would like to use the Internet more in the future (11 percent of those surveyed) do not want to do without news sites: one in two of them would like to do so in the next twelve
Months more news from the internet.
For the “Postbank Digital Study 2021 – The Digital Germans” 3,048 Germans were surveyed in January and February of this year. With this study, Postbank is examining for the seventh year in a row what developments are emerging in the various areas of life of German citizens with regard to digitalization in general and financial topics in particular.
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