Staying Ahead of the Development Curve with Insights on Emerging Technologies

This large design and manufacturing services company works with a wide variety of customers across multiple industries around the world. These customers range from well-established household brands to innovative start-ups, each looking to work with a known supplier that can also provide insights on technological advances and supply chain management issues. The strategic planning group at the company is tasked with having a good understanding of the many markets being served, emerging trends, the evolving needs of customers, and competitive dynamics. These insights help the company identify potential high-growth opportunities, determine how best to allocate capital, and establish appropriate revenue and profitability targets for each of the divisions.

Pain Points

The strategic product planning group was using publically-available sources of information to try and assess new technology developments and actions of its competitors. However, there were limitations with this approach as information was scarce and not timely. In addition, the group was having difficulty understanding the private company landscape, where most emerging technologies reside. This was hindering its ability to conduct due diligence reviews in support of potential acquisitions. The group felt that it needed access to deeper and more reliable data to:  

• Identify growth trends in areas such as cloud computing, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
• Assess the firm’s competitive position relative to other players in the marketplace by generating comparison models.
• Evaluate the technology offerings and financial performance of private companies to identify potential acquisition targets.

In addition to data and insights, the group wanted the ability to speak to subject matter experts on digital disruption to better understand important issues impacting its current product line. The group asked to meet with S&P Global Market Intelligence (“Market Intelligence”) to discuss the firm’s capabilities to support its growth strategies.

The Solution

Market Intelligence discussed an array of financial and technology-specific data, analytics, and research that would enable users to:

Understand emerging technologies

451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence analyzes the technologies, services, and companies that disrupt and evolve IT. It includes technology trends and qualitative research on the competitive technology landscape, looking at demand, key players, and revenue growth potential.

Evaluate private companies

Robust private company data on nearly 5 million companies around the globe^[1] includes revenue, total amount raised, headcount, rounds of funding, investors, and more.  Adding to this, the 451 Research M&A KnowledgeBase provides details on nearly 60,000 tech M&A transactions, with proprietary insights on undisclosed private-company valuations.

Assess the competition

S&P Capital IQ data can be easily screened on extensive financial, qualitative, and event-driven criteria to assess the activities and performance of competitors. Excel^® templates help streamline the development of financial models for detailed company comparisons.

Monitor companies and markets

The Aftermarket Research subscription features more than 29 million reports from 1,800+ global investment research providers, including top-ranked investment banks, high-quality regional brokers, boutiques, and independents from around the world. This enables users to gather valuable insights on companies of interest, monitor global industry trends, and track market developments.

Key Benefits

The Market Intelligence solution offered the ability to stay on top of developments in the emerging technology space, enabling the strategic product planning group to:  

• Enhance productivity with access to a single integrated source of data, analytics, and research.
• Access broad and deep data from a reliable source that delivers timely and relevant technology-specific information.  
• Gain competitive details on recent activities and the financial performance of both public and private companies.  
• Dig deeper to uncover market-moving insights with access to analysts with extensive subject matter expertise.
• Understand adoption rates of new technologies across its customer segments to assess possible displacement of current products.
• Streamline routine tasks with screening capabilities, Excel templates, refreshable financial models, and more.