Back in December, Eagle Investment Systems’ president and CEO John Lehner told Reference Data Review that the vendor would be focusing on bolstering its software as a service (SaaS) offering, adding new integration tools and increasing its global coverage this year. In order to reflect this work and the increased importance of its application service provider (ASP) offering, which now represents 75% of its new business, the vendor is now working on revising its mission statement and adjusting its message to the market. The focus is on moving from a product and technology centric approach to demonstrating one that is in more service driven and client centric.
Eagle has long provided data management and accounting system software solutions to the market, but over time, hosted solutions and outsourcing have become increasingly more important to its client base and the vendor’s bottom lines. “We are still focused on the areas of data management, accounting and reference data,” explains Lehner, “but we also do much more than that. Our role is to support financial institutions by allowing them to focus on their core business, while we take care of the rest.”
Much like many other vendors in the data management space, Eagle’s modus operandi has therefore evolved into more of a partnership approach to its customers, with its arsenal of SaaS and hosted solutions ready to take away the pain experienced in the middle and back office. Lehner reiterates the idea of “support” as a key tenet of its message to the market going forward and one can expect to see the concept feature within its final mission statement, which is to be defined over the coming months.
Lehner points to a recent client meeting with a large buy side firm in Europe during which the client was much more open to the idea of an ASP model than previously. In fact, the idea of ASP or component-based outsourcing was not even contemplated by this client a year ago, he explains, and this is not an isolated incident. “A number of firms have effected a 180 degree turn in their decision to keep things in-house; they are now much more open to the ASP model,” he says.
The vendor’s focus is therefore to service these client requirements and rather than pushing a product, demonstrating the ability to tailor a solution to particular needs. Hence a blend of ASP, outsourcing and software can be selected, which Lehner says demonstrates that Eagle’s offering is “much broader than just technology”. The hiring policy has also reflected this service oriented approach over recent months, with both technology and operations and service people being added to Eagle’s ranks, he says.
There is also a global bent to Eagle’s new mission statement, given its increased global coverage – for example, last year, the vendor moved Asian and EMEA managing director John Legrand from his London base out to Singapore to boost its profile in the Asian region. The vendor also added 35 operations staff to its Indian operations last year and is planning to add 25 more to the team this year, says Lehner.
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