StrikeIron Blog

StrikeIron and Financial Services

The Financial Services industry is a vertical market well served by StrikeIron through our various Web services offerings. We have an extensive list of customers consuming data and other Web services functionality via StrikeIron data centers that are integrated into 24x7 production environments. These include Wall Street investment banks, insurance companies, payroll processing firms, mortgage and loan firms, retail banks, securities analysis firms and several other segments within the industry.

We provide several different sets of solutions to our financial services customers. One example is a modeling and analytics solution which utilizes real-time and delayed stock quote data directly from NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, as well as other data from top financial information providers such as Zacks, D&B, Gale Group, Midnight Trader and Wall Street Horizons.

We also provide call center enhancement solutions such as real-time address, telephone and email verification data sources that are continually updated. We also provide additional demographic information for zero latency availability within a call center for better customer and prospective customer service.

We have data cleansing solutions to ensure that customer data is accurate, standardized, and comprehensive. There are international solutions for expanding into global markets such as currency rates data and global address verification. There are communications solutions for customer or internal notification via mobile devices and land-line phones. And we even provide risk and credit analysis solutions utilizing data from multiple credit research firms including D&B and Cortera.

And of course all of these offerings are available with the same, easy-to-integrate interface and behavior for direct use, plugging into third party applications, or integrating with internal applications, and without any ongoing data maintenance. And the business models are the same for each for even less complexity.

These solutions from StrikeIron enable our financial services customers, as well as customers from other verticals, to immediately leverage the Web to operate a data-driven business without all of the traditional costs and efforts associated with leveraging external data and Web services.

Globalization: Leveraging StrikeIron

I'd like to write today about utilizing StrikeIron's data-as-a-service product offerings as substantial components of a global business strategy. These services, like all of the SOAP and REST-based Web Services from StrikeIron, are easy to integrate and utilize as part of multiple global business processes and can provide a solid foundation for success.

For example, Our Global Address Verification Web Service helps to provide shipping accuracy, fraud reduction, and identity verification for over 240 countries by utilizing a broad array of country-specific postal data sources.

More modernized countries that are supported include over 98% street level coverage. This applies to most of Europe including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and several others.  This same level of coverage applies to many other major countries around the world including Hong Kong, Mexico, Argentina, Japan.

In some countries where postal systems are less developed and there isn't the same level of street-level data detail available, you can still get city and postal code verification level data. This can aid in partial data validation that is still of significant value. Some examples of countries that fall into this category include Nigeria, Syria, Montenegro, Vietnam, and Panama. More detailed information on the 240 countries supported can be found here.

This easy-to-integrate Web Service works simply by providing an international address as parameters. Verification information, including additional data about the address, is returned by the service from our data center instantaneously over the Web. This enables the resultant data from the service to be integrated into applications, Web sites and Web forms, business processes, or even used interactively from an HTML form if desired.

There is a sister service to the Global Address Verification Web Service called the Global Address Locator which is more interactive in nature. Rather than providing an actual verification of an address, it will return multiple addresses based on partial information that are confirmed so a user can select the correct one. This is better used in interactive applications such as a call center or data entry scenario.

Our globlization support doesn't stop with addresses however.

StrikeIron's Global SMS Web Service supports over 416 carriers in 160 different countries, allowing notification and other communication to occur globally with customers (such as a shipping confirmation notice), including integration into business processes. Simply provide a mobile number and the text of the message (no need to know the carrier) as parameters to the service. This could be driven by an application of course. In a few easy minutes, an automated global notification system can be in place.

There is also a currency Foreign Exchange Rate Web Service providing daily currency rates for price and financial reporting localization purposes.

There are several demographic data sources providing coverage of global businesses that include information such as revenue, number of employees, product information, company age, and key executives. There is also more advanced data available such as litigation history and credit scoring data. StrikeIron's D&B Worldbase Web Service is an example.

And of course, each of these XML-based Web services provide the same interface, behavior, response codes, and business model, significantly reducing the complexity around leveraging the Web for purposes of globalizing business processes. And because StrikeIron is performing all of the data updates and maintenance, the ongoing hassle of using external data sources is gone. Hook it up once and you're done.

Managing Risk in the Sales Process - A Serena Mashup Example

Here is a blog entry from Serena's Abed Farhen about a mashup they have built integrating a company's D&B credit scores into Salesforce.com using StrikeIron's D&B Business Credit Quick Check Web Service: http://community.serena.com/posts/3912967383

Serena is a StrikeIron partner, so I also had the opportunity to view the demo myself. With just a few clicks, contact companies within Salesforce.com can quickly have their corresponding credit scores become part of their company information record.

Not only does this mashup and Web service demonstrate the ease at which external data can be leveraged to increase value during a sales process, it also introduces a concept that only a few companies actually consider an important part of their sales process: prospect risk management.

So why is risk management an important part of the sales process? Imagine spending weeks preparing a $250k proposal for an opportunity that came in over the Web, then winning the business, only to have it rejected by your CFO because of the very poor credit of the prospective customer. Talk about a lot of wasted time and effort. If only the credit score was available at the beginning of the process rather than at the end, the tragedy could be avoided. This is exactly the purpose of this particular mashup, but also a great example of incorporating risk management into the sales process to more efficiently run a business.

Another example is being able to check that a business actually exists before any business is conducted with them. In the day and age of phishing and fraudulent Web activities, companies can be just as much at risk as individuals. And it is not even a choice for those companies covered by the Patriot Act, such as insurance companies who are required to check the OFAC list before business can be conducted.

Here are some easy-to-integrate Web Services in StrikeIron's portfolio to help manage risk during the CRM process:

StrikeIron's D&B Business Credit Quick Check
StrikeIron's D&B Business Verification
StrikeIron's D&B Patriot Act Compliance
StrikeIron's Cortera Credit Pulse
StrikeIron's 24-hour Accurate Business & Government Lookup

These and several more from StrikeIron, all of which work in the exact same way, can provide an easy way to introduce an effective risk management strategy into an overall CRM strategy.