Blog Post Imageai-one inc and KDD Analytics put their artificial intelligence and business intelligence expertise to work for competitive analysts. After collaboration on projects from aerospace research to marketing surveys, the companies are pleased to announce a new service for C-Suite executives and analysts.

Day in the Life of a Financial Competitive Analyst

“It’s 10:00 PM, the night before the quarterly board meeting, and we are still pulling together financial data on our company and competitors into presentation worthy graphics.

Procrastination? No, the tools and processes just make it a recurring battle. One key section of our report is hampered by a lack of standardization in SEC filings. Our auditors routinely deliver the internal financials at the last minute. Reformatting the financials in a way consistent with comparatives, let alone making them visual, interactive and providing scenario analysis capability is a time consuming hassle.

We always run out of time to actually “analyze” the results…there has to be a better way”.

– Earl Harvey, Senior Financial Competitive Analyst

Sound familiar? Earl’s problem led him to KDD Analytics and ai-one, and ultimately to a collaboration developing CIaaS (Competitive Intelligence as a Service).

The State of Financial Competitive Intelligence

Financial data on your competitors comes from SEC filings (10q/10k) via companies such as Dow Jones FactSet, Edgar Online, ThomsonOne and Bloomberg who provide aggregated financial data (typically) in Excel worksheets or through an API “firehose” that requires programming resources to navigate.

But then what?

The data still needs to be standardized across companies and reporting periods and presented in a visually digestible manner; often for people using different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile). Moreover, this process needs to be repeatable every quarter with a consistent visual format and ideally delivered several days before the board meeting…a tall order for resource constrained competitive intelligence analysts. As a result, “burning the midnight oil” sessions are the rule not the exception.

How Do You Avoid This Last Minute Stress?

Avoiding this fire drill (without hiring on more resources) is possible by using a service that has:

  1. Standardized the data
  2. Developed the visuals, charts and scenarios
  3. Loaded and analyzed the latest data, and ideally,
  4. Used A.I. to “read” and organize the relevant text from the docs.

That is, a source that will deliver a finished, interactive solution in a timely manner allowing you to focus on insight and analysis of the financial data, so you’re ready to be brilliant on demand (and getting more sleep).

Introducing the Financial Analyst Toolbox (FaTbx™), financial competitive intelligence as a service.

Currently in beta as a custom service, FaTbx™ is a set of more than 30 presentation ready Tableau dashboards, displaying interactive, comparative financial data for your company and other public companies critical to your business ecosystem.

Get the big picture fast: rankings and financial health, trends and topic heat maps (from our tech stocks demo).

FaTbx BIg Pic 3 slides

Then drill down: Income statement waterfalls, balance sheet, cash flow details and topics (see how Apple, Google and Microsoft 2015 Q3 results compare below).

FaTbx Waterfall Pic 3 slides

Developed by experienced competition, artificial intelligence, analytics and visualization experts, FaTbx™ shows your company and competitors’ financials in a consistent, standardized and easily digestible manner. Using the financials to spot issues and trends, the AI engine powers drill down to the disclosure text in the filings: no need to pull up a 10k and look for the narrative.

Filters adjust for financial category (e.g. income, cash flow, balance sheet, ratios), company, growth measure (e.g. quarter over quarter, year over year, CQGR), TTM and displayed time span. Custom filters can be added based on your company’s need.

FaTbx™ is available as a cost effective annual subscription with quarterly or monthly updates. The standard service includes comparatives for three publicly traded competitors, suppliers or customers. It is delivered online via Tableau Server Edition or through a private web portal. Subscription tiers depend on the level of support, customization, information sources and macroeconomic data desired. Custom integration with internal KPIs can be provided.

FaTbx™ – Financial CI as a Service. We streamline the grunt work of financial competitive analysis so you can focus on your company’s strategy and response. To learn more, contact me about the beta program or request a live demo.

Tom