Alacra Inc: A Case Study
Analysis
Dounia Marbouh-- 100050079
THE INDUSTRY
After the commercialization of Internet & the
proliferation of PC computers/laptops in the
90s: The Business Information Services
Industry was not well defined.
The size of the global business information
industry was more than $100 billion in annual
revenues.
The industry included private and government
publishers of information; content/database
providers; content aggregators…etc.
THE IDEA
The founders: Goldstein and Angle.
The Problem? Users collect business information from
different publishers/vendors.
Market Opportunity:
Provide quantitative data to analysts in financial
services and other analytical industries in one place.
Provide Business Information in spreadsheets to
instantly begin using the information.
A service that would decrease time, cost and effort.
THE FIRST OFFERING
Michael Angle: Chief Technology Steven Goldstein: Vice President of
Officer at Knight-Ridder subsidiary, Strategic Planning at Knight-Ridder.
Technimetrics.
He used his strategic planning
He used his technical to build a expertise to attract publishers and
technology that can take quantitative convince them to license their data to
data and deliver it in an easy-to-use Alacra.
spreadsheet format.
THE FIRST OFFERING
The First Offering in 1996: .xls
It segmented data into six Data could be directly The .xls offering had a
categories: companies, loaded into a company’s built-in system that
industries, financial information systems and allowed Alacra’s
markets, demographics, analytical models or saved customers to track the cost
countries, & economic as Excel or Lotus of the data and allocate it
statistics. spreadsheet file. to clients’ projects.
THE JOURNEY
The company
name changed
(Ex. Data
Downlink)
$1.5 million
$4 million $3.6 million
investment
raised capital raised
from Barra
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
First online Access to
Thomson’s Collapse of
service
Investext Internet
called .xls
collection bubble
$4 million
raised
capital
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS
Alacra
Portals
(May, Alacra
Alacra 2001) Book
Premium (June,
2001)
The Company’s
Alacra
Products & Complian
ce (2006)
Products & Solutions
Store
(August,
Solutions 2005)
Current Connectio
Awarenes ns (2006)
s (2006)
Concorda
nce (2006)
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS
Alacra Portals: launched in May 2000. It enables easier and user-
driven personalization that could be tailored to the needs of
customers.
Alacra Book: launched in June 2001. A services that aggregated
company-specific information from multiple sources and let
users publish this information in a single customized PDF.
Alacra Store: launched in August 2005. A public e-commerce
website hat enabled business information users to find and purchase
research solely on a transaction basis.
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS
Concordance: provided a unified view of company information
across all content sources and databases it licensed. It’s the
“backbone” of Alacra as it is the information engine.
Compliance: enabled banks and brokers to employ a consistent
and comprehensive process for KYC.
Current Awareness: compiled timely, relevant, and premium
business and financial information on individuals or companies.
Connections: provided corporate boards and executives with
information on over 30,000 companies around the world.
PRODUT DEVELOPMENT
Alacra followed a customer-centric approach to
product innovation.
Some of the products were tailored according to
the need of the custoers.
Alacra was responsive and eager to respond to its
customers’ needs.
ALACRA’s GROWTH
19 of the top-20
The Company’s global
investment
Customers banks
Included 9 of the top-10
global
accounting/cons
ulting firms
Hundreds of
By 2007, Alacra had $17.6 million commercial
in revenues (80% coming from big banks,
firms) and $1 million in profit. corporations,
law firms…etc.
THE RELAPSE
The profit was expected to grow to $2 million by 2010.
In 2008, the financial crisis spread from the U.S to
Europe and other parts of the world.
Amidst the financial crisis, the customers and prospects
were cutting their information spends.
Alacra’s largest customers segment were in serious
financial troubles.
THE CRISIS IMPACT
Street Pulse Project: how to proceed with a new
promising project?
How to move forward with the uncertain and
turbulent times?
Take Away: Companies should diversify
their customers’ portfolio.
ALACRA TODAY
Opus Corp., is a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) based compliance
solutions.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION, ANY
QUESTIONS?
