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As Virtual Meetings Skyrocket, IHS Markit and OpenExchange Take Corporate Access to the Next Level
21 July 2020
Across the world, the first half of 2020 has brought more
unprecedented changes than anyone could have predicted. This is
especially true in primary and secondary markets, where the model
for corporate and investor engagement has dramatically transformed
- going forward, one can argue that things will never be the
same.
The restrictions we experienced throughout the historic COVID-19
pandemic have rapidly accelerated our reliance on virtual events
and video conferencing, which at the same time, has brought to
light the competitive advantage of these channels. Based on what
we've learned in recent months, it is clear that a brand-new
horizon is emerging for sellside institutions.
With this in mind, and as part of our long-term strategy to
enable greater digital engagement across the Global Markets Group
at IHS Markit, we have expanded our strategic alliance with
OpenExchange, a recognized leader in virtual communication
technology.
To learn more about the enhanced collaboration with OpenExchange
and how it will help elevate Corporate Access to capital markets,
we spoke with McEvans Francois, executive director and co-head of
the Brokerage, Research, Sales & Trading team at IHS Markit and
Mark Loehr at OpenExchange. Concluding our discussion, Chris Sztam,
managing director and head of the Global Markets Group at IHS
Markit, weighs in with his thoughts.
IHS Markit and OpenExchange have had a five-year
relationship, how has this changed?
Mark: As the premiere video solutions provider, in the face of
the pandemic, we saw a natural opportunity to expand our
collaboration with IHS Markit, the event management and data
solution leader in capital markets. Our goal was to provide an
enhanced solution and experience for our mutual clients and other
players on the Street. With only a few months into this deeper
layer of our relationship, we've both played an instrumental role
in helping companies, brokers and investors transform Corporate
Access from physical to digital through thousands of virtual
meetings.
What is the strategic objective driving this alliance
with OpenExchange?
McEvans: The expanded engagement with OpenExchange is specific
to our Brokerage, Research, Sales & Trading group, with a focus
on optimizing our virtual meeting capabilities for conferences and
other Corporate Access events. This collaboration brings together a
best-of-breed solution for continuity, efficiency and innovation at
a time when in-person meetings, events and conferences have been
fundamentally transformed by COVID-19. As we look to the future, it
is clear that primary markets will dramatically increase their use
of virtual meetings and working in alliance with OpenExchange helps
ensure the best experience for our clients.
What functionality will be integrated from
OpenExchange?
McEvans: Our event management systems - iPlanner and iConference
- will house unique links to virtual meetings, company
presentations, panel discussions, webinars and conferences that are
managed using OpenExchange's industry-leading technology. The
combined workflow allows our clients to effectively map a complex
hierarchy of virtual event interactions that can be tailored to
unique corporate audiences and buyside investors, enabling our
broker-dealer clients to seamlessly manage and track schedule
distributions and overall engagement.
How are IHS Markit and OpenExchange measuring digital
engagement in Corporate Access?
McEvans: By working in close alliance with OpenExchange, we are
empowering clients with statistics and engagement intelligence that
could not be gathered from in-person meetings prior to COVID-19.
Clients can now view engagement scores and details that represent
interest-levels and connectivity to content, where in the past,
post-event reporting was limited to whether an attendee showed up,
did not show up or cancelled ahead of time.
To take it a step further, the engagement metrics we capture can
advise on the popularity of individual presenters and presentation
slides, the account level and in-depth measure of the most-watched
content, retention curves at which viewers tapper off and the
bounce rate on presentations, among other key points. While an
in-person event may allow people to survey the feel of the room,
mannerisms and body language, we are capturing objective patterns
on digital engagement that will shape the future of our
industry.
For our clients and prospects considering virtual conferences,
we have seen a seismic shift over the past few months. Before
COVID-19, we were asked, "How will we ever pull this off?" - now,
the questions have shifted to, "How do I measure how my content is
being received?" and "I noticed high levels of engagement in this
specific presentation… what was so different here?" My personal
favorite observation is from a client that "could never get this
type of analytical insight previously."
How will this deliver greater value to our
customers?
McEvans: Sellside banks and broker-dealers have been forced to
quickly adapt their businesses to a world turned virtual. Through
the alliance, our banking clients can scale virtual meetings by
running them concurrently and optimize efficiency by having IHS
Markit programmatically manage OpenExchange's virtual links through
our event management solutions.
Wrap Up: Chris, what is your view on our relationship
with OpenExchange?
Chris: IHS Markit provides innovative solutions to facilitate
capital formation in both primary and secondary markets. In
addition to our data, analytics and workflow tools, we are excited
about the partnership with OpenExchange, as it positions our
customers for greater success, given the emerging role of virtual
events. Extending our relationship with OpenExchange will enable us
to deploy workflow solutions more quickly to our customers.