Burdened by Data? You’re Probably Using it Wrong

COVID-19 is forcing capital markets firms to invest in both proprietary insights and third-party data

Over the past decade, investment management, banking, and credit firms alike have flocked to data providers like Preqin with the hopes that access to verified data would help them make faster and more informed decisions in their day-to-day deal-making. What many firms have failed to thread the needle on, however, is operationalizing that data and making it a part of their day-to-day workflow.  

The problem is that access to data isn’t the same as utilization. Most firms have access to verified data providers, but many fail to fully leverage it because data manipulation is a labor-intensive chore. The person tasked with that chore is likely running searches in various databases for the information they seek, then exporting the data, formatting it, and uploading it to another database or spreadsheet. This kind of activity has become commonplace at countless capital market firms – but it doesn’t have to be.

In light of COVID-19 disruptions, firms can no longer afford to be dedicating their human capital to needlessly time-intensive tasks. As relationships have suffered from ‘Zoom fatigue’ and a lack of networking opportunities, data remains the lifeblood of the industry. Luckily, technology allows firms to expand data utilization while reducing the time-intensive data entry that has traditionally been required.  

As firms look to the future, we encourage them to seek out and invest in next-generation data analytics and visualization solutions. Why? Record-breaking low deal volumes may rebound in late 2020 and beyond, but the winners and losers will be decided by who can execute and who is too slow to the punch.

Best-in-class deal-makers already leverage technology to capture, display, and report on a combination of proprietary and third-party data. This allows them the insights they need to be first off the starting blocks, and the clarity they require to be victorious at the finish line. That’s why we built DealCloud DataCortex: to enable firms to query third-party datasets like Preqin, FactSet, and S&P Market Intelligence (to name a few) direct from the DealCloud platform. There’s no need to export, copy and paste, or format third-party data – it’s all readily available in a single place.

As deal-making heats up in 2021, the best-positioned firms will leverage their data to act quickly and decisively, instead of being hindered by slow, labor-intensive processes and outdated workflows.  

About DealCloud
DealCloud, an Intapp company, provides a single-source and cloud-based deal, relationship, and firm management platform to over 900 clients. We offer fully configurable solutions purpose-built for the complex relationships and structures of the capital markets. 

For more information, visit www.dealcloud.com.

For more information on service providers operating across the private capital and hedge fund industries, read Preqin's new report.