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Experience Q4 Touch – A Finance App Designed for the Daily IRO Life

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Screen Shot 2015-06-15 at 11.35.59 AMEarlier this week, we were pleased to pre-release our new and improved Q4 Touch App. “Finally, a Finance App for the IRO – Not the Investor.” Today, we are excited to announce that the app is available for download from both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

This post walks through some of the great features of the new app.

Over the last few months we’ve been hard at work building features and functionality into Q4 Touch, geared towards the daily needs of all IROs. Our main goal throughout the development process was to create a tool that IROs can use to keep up with the rapid changes that take place in the market on a daily basis.

Below, we highlight the latest features of the app that are going to improve your day-to-day life as an IRO:

Activity Page

The main page of Q4 Touch. When you first sign up for your Q4 Touch account, you will be prompted to provide the ticker symbol for the company that you work for. From there, Q4 Touch configures your activity feed, and you also have access to a real time news feed.

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From the Activity Page, you have access to a real time news feed on all of the IR related articles published about your company and your peers. The newsfeed is compiled from a vast source of publishers and features only news items associated with investment / financial reporting. This means that IR users are only seeing the news they need and are not being bogged down with irrelevant content.

Users also have access to a stock report comparing their company’s market performance with their peers from the watchlist (more on that shortly). If they include the Trade Indicator upgrade as well, they’re also able to see their own Trade Indicator score as well as a report featuring all the companies in their watchlist that have had a change in score in the last 24 hours.

Stock Report

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The Stock Report provides an overview of the stock performance for each company on the user’s watchlist for the current day (or the day before closing bell if you’re checking after hours). This is a great way to quickly see how industry peers are performing in the market at that exact time.

Watchlist

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When a user first creates their Q4 Touch account, the app automatically creates a custom watchlist of their peers based on their company’s industry. App users are able to scroll through the list and get a look into their peers current stock price and movement. If you have the Trade Indicator add-on, you are also able to see their current Trade Indicator score. Selecting a company on the watch list will take you to their company profile page where you will be able to see their current stock price, stock report and the company’s investor news.

The watchlist is completely customizable, allowing you to add any company you want to follow. Simply type their name into the search bar and select their name in order to add the  company to the watchlist. You’re also able to select a specific company to pin to the top of your list so that you are able to easily compare their performance to others on your list.

Company Profile

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As stated above, selecting a company on the watchlist takes the user to their company profile where they’re able to access a detailed stock report along with a 24 hour overview of their stock performance. The Company Profile also features a list of the latest investor news published on the profiled company. Like the user’s own company Activity Page, all of the news content has been curated to exclusively feature content that is meaningful to IROs. If the Trade Indicator upgrade has been included, the user is also able to see a Trade Indicator Score report from the last 24 hours and their TI score compared with their stock movement over a 1 month, 3 month and 1 year period.

By adjusting your phone and positioning it in landscape view, you can  access additional datasets to compare the stock performance against.

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In addition, you can also compare the stock movement against popular market indices like the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100 and the Dow Jones to get a true sense of how the company’s performance compares against the market. You are also able to compare using the companies on your watchlist to see how the competition stacks up. Finally, if you have the Trade Indicator add on, you can  compare all this information.

All of these features have been integrated into Q4 Touch to allow IROs to keep track of market change for their stock and their peers. Q4 Touch is unique because it provides a comparative, alert-driven approach to automatically notify IROs of changes in the market and provide them with the tools to better understand the nature of the change within their industry.

Q4 Touch is free to download and available for all iOS and Android devices.

Download Q4 Touch:

Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/q4-touch/id944844669?mt=8

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.q4websystems.Q4App&hl=en


Q4 Announces Q4 IPO Subsidy Program Available Free of Charge

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Screen Shot 2015-09-10 at 10.00.18 AMSince 2014, we have seen major shifts in the IPO market, with leading companies in Technology, Healthcare and Industrials making the move into the capital markets. Q4 is proud to have been a major player in the IR services market, working with many pre IPO companies on the launch of their investor website and continuing to work with those companies through their earnings presentations and further site development.

In the coming months, we see many more companies getting ready to take the IPO leap and we wanted to offer them an easy way to obtain the expertise and technology they need to deliver strong investor relations right out of the gate.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to announce the launch of our new Q4 IPO Subsidy Program. We have designed this new program to provide companies going public with all the website and webcast tools they need prior to and after their IPO. The Q4 IPO Subsidy Program consists of a two-year web hosting subscription, a two-year webcasting subscription covering four earnings events per year, full integration with our innovative news, Intelligence and Client Services app, Q4 Touch as well as a dedicated Client Services Specialist for ongoing support and maintenance. All of this is available free of charge for two years for any NYSE or NASDAQ listed IPO company.

everything you need

In the last two years, we have worked with over 160 IPO clients. In 2014 alone, we handled webhosting and webcasting for nearly 20% of all NYSE/NASDAQ IPOs. As a result, we know about the pressures companies face in the months and weeks leading up to their IPO. Preparing for an IPO often ends up being a juggling act between dealing with lawyers and banks and road shows to meet with institutional investors. All of this takes up a large portion of time and can take away from focusing on planning for early stage online investor communication.

relax

Seeing this stress first hand, we have created the Q4 IPO Subsidy Program to provide companies with the support they need on the online IR communications front. With our experience, we know what needs to happen regarding IR website content and launch. After an initial kick off call we are off to the races, pulling together content and designs and creating a leading IR website. We’re able to make suggestions and recommendations to ensure your investors get the most out of your website.

Our IPO clients also gain access to our amazing service team. Each IPO client receives their own dedicated Client Service Specialist (CSS). Our CSS team has years of experience with IPO clients and acts as your main point of contact at Q4. They will be in charge of managing your earnings webcasts, organizing and monitoring investor calls and ensuring your website is full of the best practices and always up to date.

at your service

With our experience in the space, the goal of the Q4 IPO Subsidy Program is to provide IPO companies with the support system, ensuring that their IR website and webcasting needs are covered leading up to and in the months and years after our IPO. We are committed to growing with our clients and feel that the Q4 IPO Subsidy Program is a great way to build a strong, lasting relationship with our clients from the very beginning.

Visit www.q4ipo.com for more details!

I couldn’t be more excited to launch this program and looking forward to working with many more incredible companies on their journey of going public.

Q4 Acquires Oxford Intelligence Partners

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Oxford HomeToday marks a major step in growth for Q4. I’m thrilled to announce that we have acquired Oxford Intelligence Partners. See the official press release here.

For those of you that don’t know who Oxford is, they are arguably the most innovative provider of market intelligence and stock surveillance services in the investor relations market. Oxford was founded late last year by a former group of analysts at Bloom Partners, who were part of NASDAQ’s market intelligence and surveillance businesses. They left NASDAQ in 2014 and joined up with a group of quantitative developers (aka math geniuses) with the objective of bringing new predictive analytics and next generation stock surveillance to the market.

Since their inception they have created a set of quantitative analytics focused on providing forward looking insights into sentiment, volatility and activism. Earlier this year we partnered with Oxford to bring this predictive data and stock surveillance services to our clients. Since the start of our relationship it’s been a match made in heaven. I can’t understate the synergies between our two groups. I am so excited about the future and the products we are going to be bringing to the market over the coming months.

Oxford joining Q4 helps to accelerate our mission of becoming the world’s leading SaaS provider of capital markets intelligence and advanced communication for public companies and institutional investors.  Oxford’s CEO Adam Frederick will join Q4 as SVP of Intelligence along with his team of best-in-class surveillance experts, quantitative data scientists, floor specialists and programmatic traders. The entire Oxford team will join Q4 with the mandate of delivering the best stock surveillance in the market combined with predictive market intelligence and decision making tools for investor relations managers, the C-suite and institutional investors.

We are very excited to welcome Oxford’s team to Q4 and look forward to continuing to deliver innovative products and best-in-class to all of our clients today and in the future. Stay tuned for our first product launches based on Oxford’s quantitative analytics, due to hit the market very soon.

Please join me in welcoming the amazing team from Oxford and join me in celebrating with a virtual glass of champagne.

Cheers!

It’s Time to Make Q4 Inc. Official!

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Today, I’m very excited to announce we’re changing our company name from Q4 Web Systems to Q4 Inc. We decided to formalize this change as we have been known in the marketplace as Q4 for a number of years and, given that we have expanded into the broader IR market and intelligence solutions, we felt that now was the time to make it official.

When we started Q4 back in 2006, our focus was on delivering the best IR websites in the market. Since then, we’ve grown Q4 into the leading provider of IR websites in North America. However, our vision for Q4 is to build out our platform to provide tools, data, and intelligence solutions to help both corporate and institutional clients. We believe our software and quantitative analytics can help both sides of the market engage and make better decisions around investing and the capital markets.

As part of our name change and new corporate identity, we have also updated our logo. As you can see below, it’s now slightly more modern than our previous version. We feel that the refined logo really helps capture the essence of what the Q4 brand entails today, while preserving its true essence. We hope you like it!

 

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We have plenty of exciting news coming soon, and lots new products launching in the market over the next couple of months – so keep an eye out! I couldn’t be more excited about Q4 and the future it holds for our customers and employees (aka QForce!).

Time to Move Over Big Guy, Q4 Desktop is Coming

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In the last few years, Q4 Inc. has established itself as the industry leader in web-hosting and webcasting for Investor Relations. With a focus on providing our clients with leading edge technology and first class customer service, we’ve helped bring IR programs to the next level.

In 2015, we entered the market intelligence and stock surveillance space, first partnering with and then acquiring Oxford Intelligence Partners. Like our web efforts, our intelligence and stock surveillance offerings are created using a technology-first approach in order to provide IROs with quantitative, forward-looking insights into their ownership, activist risk and investor sentiment.

Today we are very excited to announce that coming this spring, we are going to be launching a new IR solution – Q4 Desktop. We’ve been working hard at integrating our innovative datasets with our first-class web services for a complete suite of IR solutions. Our next-generation user experience is sure to set a new standard in the industry.

If you’d like to learn more, click the image below to register for updates or contact sales@q4inc.com to arrange a demo.

 

Top 5 Reasons I’m Excited about Q4 Desktop

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Today we launched our new IR platform called Q4 Desktop. I’m incredibly excited to bring this product to the market as it is the result of us executing on our strategy over the last few years to deliver the most comprehensive, leading edge technology solutions to the global investor relations market.

Here’s my top 5 reasons I’m excited about Q4 Desktop.

1. It’s incredibly easy to use

  • Building a great application in today’s world is about making it as easy to use as the leading apps out there, like Instagram. For Q4 Desktop we have leveraged comment threads, tagging, search and flexible reporting to deliver an incredibly easy way to organize, track, report and manage all your activities across your IR and management teams.
  • We have also integrated enterprise (secure) chat into the product, allowing you to chat in real-time to your team members, your surveillance analyst and even your client success manager at Q4.
  • The key to building great products is to make them easy to use. Q4 Desktop doesn’t come with a help manual… simply because it doesn’t need one! Amazing.

2. Factset data powers all ownership and contact data

  • To make Q4 Desktop an immediate leader in the space, we needed to start with enterprise grade market data and Factset was it. With over 350,000 Global Institutional Firm, Fund and Contact profiles coming from Factset inside Q4 Desktop, you can be rest assured your requirements of data coverage and accuracy will be met.

3. It’s the only all-in-one solution in the market

  • Q4 Desktop is the only product in the market that seamlessly delivers all the services needed by IR teams including: Investor CRM, Ownership, Contact Data Surveillance 2.0 data reporting, Website and Webcast analytics and customer service applications in one intuitive and easy to use product.
  • There are other products out there that may integrate third party analytics for websites, or vendors that have multiple applications with different datasets. There is no other solution that has integrated all of the services across intelligence, websites and webcasting like Q4 Desktop. It clearly stands on it’s own.

4. Artificial intelligence answers your questions before you ask them

  • Our artificially intelligent software is able to read all of our data sets and provide commentary, updated in 15 minute increments about what is driving your stock right now. This also analyzes institutional buying and selling patterns, options trading and various other factors to provide actionable commentary throughout the day.
  • This level of technology does not exist in our competitors capability. Our team of data scientists and quant developers, combined with cutting edge Natural Language Processing technology is able to deliver an experience that is second to none. (And this is just the beginning of what we are going to do here).

5. The base version is free and you decide what add-on

  • The base version of Q4 Desktop, which includes a ton of features such as News, Quotes, Company Analytics, AI Commentary, Website and Webcasting analytics are all free for Q4 clients.
  • All additional add-ons are optional. For example, if you want event and transcriptions, but not estimates and research, and you’d like trading and options analytics for your company and not the entire market, you can configure it.
  • Think of it like TV on the Internet (Q4 Desktop) vs. Cable (our competitors). You have unlimited flexibility.

Click here to watch a 90-second video and learn more about Q4 Desktop.

 

 

How Q4 Desktop Answers the #1 Question in IR Before You Ask It

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I’m very excited that we’ve launched Q4 Desktop at NIRI. Q4 Desktop is a brand new application that we’ve been working on for the last 8 months. Its purpose is to deliver all of the services, data, insight and tools required to manage successful investor relations program. The product provides institutional grade data, on all US and Canadian equities and the entire universe of Factset ownership data, along with global firm, fund and over 210,000 investor contact profiles.

However, the underlying data is just the beginning of what Q4 Desktop provides. When we set out to design the product, we wanted to deliver an app that was easy to use, but that was also proactive in delivering information to our clients before they asked the question. Rather than being another information portal, which requires the user to do all of the heavy lifting, we wanted the software to have the ability to do the work for the user.

To achieve this, we used artificial intelligence (AI) methods known as machine learning and natural language processing to deliver 15mins delayed market commentary throughout the day on what is driving your stock. If you work in IR your #1 question is “what’s going on with the stock” this provides that answer right away, each time you log in.

Here is an example of an AI statement related to LinkedIn’s stock.

AI statement related to LinkedIn’s stock

 

To deliver this, we have an algorithm that is reading various data sets and our quantitative indicators is making a judgement as to what is relevant to communicate. In addition to data sets and indicators, the algorithm is evolving to incorporate all of our datasets, including events, research, estimates, etc. Moving forward, AI offers great potential to help answer questions in real time from IROs and other market participants and help drive better decision making.

Think of it as having the worlds best and fastest Analyst available to you 24/7, answering any question you may have. It’s an exciting time.

What I Learned Raising $22 million

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Last month, Q4 announced the closing of $22 million in our Series B financing round. I’ve learned a lot over the last 9 months and I hope that some of my learnings will be helpful to others starting, growing and raising funds to execute their dreams.

The crazy thing about raising money is how different it is to be inside the tent of the round than on the outside. For those that are raising money, you know what I’m talking about. Closing any type of investment, whether it’s $100k, $1m or $10m requires the same level of commitment and effort. It’s a war of attrition to finally close it and once you do, the reality sets in that you have successfully sold a vision that you now need to execute on.

It’s clear to me that closing a round of funding is not winning, it’s not even close. It’s executing on your dream and building a successful company that’s winning. Closing a round is always an incredible step to growth. But it’s important to understand that closing a round doesn’t mean anything if you’re not able to use that money to execute.

I’ve led a total of $30m in funding for Q4, to date. The first round was for $100k back in 2006. It was from a close friend. And once his money was invested, the snowball effect started with additional friends and family looking to invest in Q4. This is what I call ‘love money’.

Series B is quite different, obviously, because with institutional investors the transaction is all business. When you get to the point of raising Series B, you have gone through all the early days of figuring out the business and you’re focused on scaling. Your annual recurring revenue (in today’s SaaS world) is typically over $10m and you’re likely growing at a minimum of 50% annually.

When it became clear that Q4 was ready to scale, we began planning for Series B. We had already successfully closed seed, angel, series A rounds and were looking for the capital to expand our product portfolio and geographic markets. We started the process of building out all of our data and investor materials and got into the market around the end of Sept 2015.  

 

Lesson One: No One Knows Your Market Like You Do

The first thing I learned when Q4 started talking to larger VCs and growth equity investors is how little they knew about our market, competitors and growth opportunities. It took time to explain the industry’s market consolidation, the influence of stock exchanges and many other critical nuances before we started to see our investors nod their heads – like they were understanding our story.

The challenge here is that many investors will say the classic “got it” very early in discussions, when in fact they don’t actually understand yet. You need to go back to 101 on your company, the vision, the market, etc. Because the reality is… if you lose an investor while trying to explain what you do and the market you compete in, you’ve likely lost them forever.

 

Lesson Two: There are Always More Metrics

Once the investors understood our business and market, they started to dissect us, quickly.

We spent a considerable amount of time preparing for the round before talking to investors. We established a comprehensive data room, which we thought explained the business from every perspective and included every metric needed to evaluate Q4.

We were wrong!

Within the first week of discussions we noticed that investors use different metrics to evaluate a company such as contracted ARR (cARR), segmented gross margin, pipeline adds and pipeline coverage. We, internally, needed to understand these new metrics and forecast out for a number of years so that investors would have the data they needed to evaluate and understand the business. These metrics have helped us understand our business to a level we previously didn’t, which has turned out to be quite helpful in running the business.

As a side note, the difficulty in raising money from series B type investors is that they are working with and looking at literally hundreds of companies. They have a perspective on metrics that are rivaled by no one. Where they were weak on our market, position, strategy, etc. they dominated in data… at least in the beginning of our discussions. After we got up to speed, we became experts but trust me, I have the scars to prove that some of the early discussions did not go well.

 

Lesson Three: Start Conversations Early

Don’t come into the market sprinting; rather have conversations early in the process — understand the data drivers, key metrics and what matters to investors now. Do this directly with investors, don’t rely on your advisors, bankers, etc. The reality is they likely don’t know all the key metrics either. After you’ve done this pre-raise work, go back and fine tune your data and then return to the table in a formal way.

As Mike Tyson famously said “everyone has a plan, until they get hit in the face.” Meeting with professional investors is very much like this —  and when you get hit in the face it’s always best to respond with something like “we don’t currently track that metric; can you explain it to me more? why is it useful?”. Learn from the gap in your data and grow stronger.

 

Lesson Four: Believe in Your Vision

I learned during this round of funding how important it is to understand your vision and fully commit to it.  Investors at this level are not short of ideas as to what you should do with the business, the direction you should go, and what cracks exist in your strategy; however, what is really happening during these discussions is:  

  1.   Investors are testing you to see how solid your vision is. Is it clear and do you operate with purpose?
  2.   You are indirectly testing yourself. Is it just words I’m saying, or is my vision solid and something I’m committed to make happen?

The right investors are the ones that back your vision. I have never partnered with an investor that doesn’t believe in the direction of Q4.  If you have the opportunity to partner with an investor that is the right fit, vs. one that will give you a higher valuation, take the fit. The difference in valuation is likely quite small when you look at it long term; however, having an investor that is the wrong fit could destroy your business. The entrepreneurial landscape is littered with founders who were fired from their company because they weren’t aligned with their investors.  

So stick to your guns and find investors that will back you.

 

Lesson Five: Trust Your Team

During fundraising the CEO is taken offline. This means that things like sales, marketing, customer service, cash management, product development, etc. will need to be managed by your team. If you’re still the rain maker in sales, you risk sales slowing down during fundraising, etc. You have to assume that you are going to not be involved in the day-to-day business, until the deal is done.

If your business slows during fundraising, investors are going to drive down your value or simply walk away. You need to make sure your team is strong and can handle, not only running the business, but growing it significantly during the process. For our Series B, my management team was incredible and drove incredible growth, which was instrumental in getting the round completed.  

 

If you’re raising money or thinking about it, I hope this has been helpful in someway. I’m always open to helping other entrepreneurs. If you have a question please feel free to comment, or message me.

Happy fundraising. Go get it!


Q4 Acquires Euroinvestor IR Solutions

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Earlier this morning we announced that Q4 has acquired Euroinvestor IR Solutions, Europe’s leading provider of stock quotes, charts, tools, and news apps for investor websites. I am thrilled about what this means for Q4 and all of our clients around the world. Full press release can be found here.

The new subsidiary (known as Q4 Euroinvestor) provides IR tools and feeds to more than 600 European listed companies such as HSBC, HTC, SKY, Philips and Shell. The firm’s technology platform is integrated with 45 global stock exchanges and their products are available in 21 languages.

They were established in 2003 by Euroinvestor.com A/S to provide stock quotes and charts to European clients. Over the past 13 years they have grown their technology platform to provide a wide array of quote and charting related applications including: Interactive Charts, Mini Quotes, XML, JSON Feeds, Investment Calculators, Historical Price Look Ups, Benchmark Tables, Latest Trades, Regulatory News, Email Alerts, Consensus Forecast Data, Interactive KPIs, Factsheets, and Mobile Apps & APIs.

We see this as an exciting milestone for our clients around the globe. Q4 is now able to offer global stock quotes and tools, no matter what global exchange our clients are hosted on. We are also now able to offer our complete suite of IR services to companies around the world, which includes everything IR departments need to run award winning programs: market leading websites, webcasting, IR desktop, CRM and stock surveillance/shareholder ID services.

This deal follows on our acquisition of Oxford Intelligence Partners in September of 2015 and the launch of our stock surveillance, market analytics and IR Desktop products in 2016. The Euroinvestor IR Solutions acquisition is an important milestone for Q4 as it enables us to take our offering to the next level. This is truly a transformational step for Q4.

We are going to maintain Q4 Euroinvestor’s head office in Copenhagen, Denmark, along with the entire management team and workforce there. But this is just the beginning as we plan to expand our operations and hire in the UK and other European markets over the coming months.

For more details on the deal, please check out:

Press Release
Q4 product website
Q4euroinvestor.com

With now more than 1,300 global clients, this acquisition firmly cements our position as the fastest growing provider of IR products and services globally. We are incredibly excited to continue this growth path into 2017 and beyond.

Please join me in welcoming the Euroinvestor IR Solutions team to the Q4 family. And next time you’re in Copenhagen, drop by the office for a pint… and say hello!

Our Year of Growth: Putting service first is the key to success

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I’ve always believed that technology is what makes us competitive, but service is how we win. Q4 grew more in 2016 than in any other year, and we did it by putting our relationships first.

We spent a lot of time this year investing in our products. One of the challenges of growth is scaling up on your product suite while ensuring you don’t lose sight of what makes you unique. I’ve always believed that an unwavering commitment to our clients and service is the key to growth, and Q4 has always done whatever it takes to serve our clients in every way possible. When you couple that kind of customer-focused hustle with some serious investments in the cloud, machine learning algorithms, and the most capable team of market analysts in capital markets, you have the winning combination that is Q4.

In the first half of 2016, we raised a large round of funding and attracted a tier one group of investors, which is helping us take the company to the next level. In June we launched Q4 Desktop, the industry’s first fully ­integrated IR and CRM platform that integrates website, webcasting, analytics, and intelligence tools to help IROs be more effective.  

We also rolled out our largest ever upgrade to our web solution, providing the most secure, reliable, and dynamic IR website platform on the market. We added more new clients and team members than ever before. And we acquired Euroinvestor IR Solutions in Copenhagen, launching our expansion into European markets and officially making Q4 a global company.

 

Q4 Desktop: Investing in the future of IR

We knew it was early when we launched Q4 Desktop back in June, but we also knew we had a large group of clients who would help us iterate and evolve the product. It’s because of their confidence and feedback that we’ve been able to build out our offering and expand the relationships that have ultimately led to this growth.

We’ve grown our quant team significantly over the last nine months, and their work is starting to bear fruit. This wicked smart group of people continue to build out an array of machine learning algorithms that are able to analyze and extract actionable intelligence from massive capital markets data sets. These algorithms are being used by our analysts today and will also show up in enhancements to existing features in Q4 Desktop and in entirely new products launching in 2017. (Very exciting!)

Today, Q4 Desktop contains all of the competitive data and content needed to run the most sophisticated IR program, all wrapped in an intuitive and flexible CRM. We are now, in 2017, in the best position possible to create the most seamless workflow experience on the market with our desktop solution.

Q4Desktop

Q4 Desktop: our most exciting innovation of 2016.

 

New acquisition: Becoming an international business

This year was the year Q4 truly became a global business. When we acquired Euroinvestor IR Solutions — our second acquisition in two years — we gained more than 600 clients and a strong foothold in the UK and European markets. In 2017 we will continue to work with our European teams and clients to evolve our platform and launch new and innovative products into these markets. As we work to open our office in London during the first quarter of this year, I’ve never felt more positive about our ongoing global expansion.

Euroinvestor_team

Q4 acquired Euroinvestor IR Solutions, our second acquisition in two years.

 

Investing in our home base

Thank you so much to everyone here at Q4 for everything you do. Everyone who works at Q4 around the globe understands that great customer service is about the little things. It’s all about solving small problems and being proactive. It’s these tireless efforts, many unnoticed and unmentioned, that make the difference in our clients’ experience. All of us at Q4 live and breathe this philosophy, and this is why we will be able to continue to grow.

DarrellHeaps

Q4 staff are dedicated to the highest level of customer service possible.

Our clients, our staff, and our partnerships around the world are the moving pieces that drive Q4’s success. Moving ahead in 2017, we have new products and features coming out that will further improve and automate many of the ways IR professionals work and engage with investors. I wish I could tell you more about what’s coming — but that would ruin the surprise.

As momentous as 2016 was for us, I’m even more excited about what 2017 will bring. Thank you for your support, your confidence, and your business. We look forward to working with you!

Darrell Heaps is the founder and CEO of Q4. Follow him on Twitter @darrellheaps.

The post Our Year of Growth: Putting service first is the key to success appeared first on Q4 Blog.

Q4 acquires CapMark Clarity: A shared vision to bring next gen shareholder ID to the UK and Europe

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I’m very excited to announce our acquisition of CapMark Clarity, and the addition of Amit Sanghvi, CEO of CapMark Clarity, to the Q4 team. Amit will be bringing our next gen shareholder ID and market intelligence platform to the UK and Europe, marking an important moment of expansion for Q4 into new markets. Combining Q4’s leading-edge technologies with CapMark Clarity’s market intelligence expertise enables us to provide the fastest, most accurate and actionable intelligence solution to the UK and European markets.

As we approached this day, I sat down with Amit and our head of global intelligence, Adam Frederick, to talk about the deal, the market, and all things related to shareholder ID, market intelligence, and the coming robot revolution in investor relations. (Just kidding on that last one!)


DarrellHeapsDarrell Heaps:
Amit, let’s start by welcoming you to Q4! We’ve been talking for a while now, and I know I speak for all of us here at Q4 when I say how excited we are about you and CapMark Clarity joining our mission to bring next generation solutions to investor relations markets around the world. Using our data science approach in the U.S., we’ve been able to establish a new level of speed, accuracy, and actionability of data for our clients. We’re so excited to combine this with what you do and provide the same solutions here in the UK and Europe.

 

InsetImage1 (6)Amit Sanghvi: Thanks, Darrell. As you know, I’ve been providing shareholder ID solutions to European markets for over ten years and I’ve seen a tremendous amount of change. I’ve seen the market surveillance industry grow and evolve in an environment where transparency isn’t always available and where IROs have had to work really hard to get their information. When I started CapMark Clarity, I set out to use technology to bring more efficiency and precision to IROs. I’ve been following the Q4 story for quite some time, and I’m excited to be a part of what Q4 has been doing with technology to disrupt the space.

 

InsetImage3Adam Frederick: I echo Darrell’s comments, and I’m also excited to have you on the team! European expansion has always been on our roadmap, and you’re bringing the expertise we need to take that on. When we closed out our Series B round of funding in May and then acquired Euroinvestor IR Solutions back in October, we found ourselves in a unique position to grow our presence in Europe — and CapMark Clarity was the perfect fit. I’m very glad the timing worked out to get this done so early in 2017.

 

 

Darrell: Adam, for the readers, perhaps you could elaborate a bit on our view of big data and the use of algorithms in the market, and how this has really shaped our solutions.

 

Adam: Sure, Darrell, happy to. I guess at the heart of it, there’s been an undeniable trend in the exponential growth and use of big data (including artificial intelligence and machine learning) in the capital markets over the past ten years. The buy-side initially caught on, with cutting-edge firms like Renaissance Tech, Two Sigma, and Citadel employing big data quant technologies. Today we see more traditional “stock-pickers” like Bridgewater or Goldman Sachs Assets Mgmt going all-in on this type of technology. Even sell-side research firms now utilize big data systems in their research efforts. It’s become clear that in order to succeed in the capital markets, you need to be harnessing the power of big data. At Q4 we’re doing exactly that. We’re leveraging this technology to bring real-time insights, forward-looking predictive trading analytics, sector analysis, and advanced shareholder ID methods that increase not only the timeliness and accuracy of the intel, but also really emphasize the actionability of it. The result is a product unlike anything the European corporate market has seen.

 

Amit: I couldn’t agree more. It’s true, technology is disrupting every industry, IR included. What’s really changed over the course of my career is the emphasis on technology empowering the IRO. Q4 provides a level of customer service that challenges what’s available in the market, with industry-leading technologies that make the data an IRO needs to succeed more accessible and digestible. This is the impact we’re going to have on Europe: lots of expertise coupled with technology to empower IROs to be more effective in their roles and to work faster, of course.

 

Adam: Exactly. We’re not just coming at European markets with a data dump — it’s about providing insight and actionable information along with an amazing user interface and natural language commentary. As we roll out Q4 Desktop to Europe during this first quarter, I’m very excited about the impact it will have, as it really is redefining the IR desktop category and what is possible.  

 

Darrell: Well, it’s clear to me that there is a lot of love in this room! It’s an exciting time, and we can’t wait to begin rolling out the products we have planned for this market. Amit, to close things out, can you provide a brief comment on the evolving role of IR?

 

Amit: Sure, Darrell. IROs are the rock stars of their companies: they are taking on more responsibilities from the C-suite. And while a technology revolution has been taking place in IR for many years, it’s older technologies that are still dominating the space. You can see that in the look and feel of other desktop solutions. So there’s a lot of room for growth in that sense, to deliver market intelligence using the best technology available. Great shareholder ID combined with the best technology in the market is really what’s going to keep IROs looking like the rock stars they are.

 

Darrell: Thanks Amit and Adam for joining me, and a massive congratulations on getting the deal done! Readers, keep an eye out for blogs from Amit; he’s going to be a regular contributor and brings a great perspective to the market. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this interview! Cheers.


Darrell Heaps is the founder and CEO of Q4 Inc. Follow him on
LinkedIn.

Amit Sanghvi is the founder and CEO of CapMark Clarity. Follow him on Twitter @4mits.

Adam Frederick is the senior vice president of intelligence at Q4 Inc. and blogs regularly about surveillance and its applications for IROs. Follow him on LinkedIn.

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What’s in a Plan? Five Essentials When Communicating a CEO Transition

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You probably have heard your CEO or a member of the board expound on the need to have a succession communications plan. (Perhaps you have been the one doing the expounding.) And it’s true: public companies should put significant thought into how they will communicate the transition of a C-level executive or board member.

More often than not, communications professionals walk away from these discussions wondering what goes into the plan. So with that in mind, today we discuss the five essential elements of a successful succession communications plan.

 

Plan it out

As soon as you know your board is conducting a CEO search, create a detailed timeline that will keep your succession communications on track. Name each task with the target completion date and the name of the person or people responsible for implementation. List all the materials that are necessary for the announcement, including drafts and final versions. Also, make sure to include daily or weekly update meetings to ensure the internal communications / investor relations team and any external counselors are held accountable. Think, too, of the planning items that will be part of the process but won’t be made available to the public. For example, whom will the Board select as its spokesperson for the announcement? Being systematic and detailed will help avoid last-minute headaches and afford the company sufficient time to evaluate the progress of the plan.

 

Determine the key messages

Communicating succession is a company’s opportunity to detail the Board’s vision for the next CEO, and by extension, the company. If you’re announcing a previous CEO’s departure, use this as a high-profile chance to advertise for the position. List the qualifications and experience you are looking for and how these tie into the Board’s strategic vision for the company. If you’re announcing the new CEO, emphasize the primary reasons he or she was selected, clearly outlining the new corporate strategy or explicitly affirming the existing one. These points all must be clear to the investment community if you are to succeed in selling that vision. In making your case, it will be tempting to pack as many points into the announcement as possible, but this is a situation when “less” is “more.” By winnowing your messages to just a few, your thesis will crystallize in the minds of investors, sell-side analysts and the media.

 

Identify the communications vehicles

Now that you have determined your messaging, where will you communicate it? A press release is a must, at a minimum, but there are several other options. An investor conference call, media interviews and corporate website videos all are appropriate options. You may also consider specialized content for the corporate website, such as a letter from the chairman or a corporate video. Even the new CEO’s bio should contain the proper messaging. In fact, make sure the same themes run across all of your materials, whether print or electronic. Otherwise, you will unwittingly confuse these finely honed messages.

 

Prepare, practice, repeat

Remember, it is imperative that your CEO create a positive first impression. Prepare him or her and the corporate spokesperson with rigorous media / presentation training. We don’t mean a quick run-through. Grill the CEO with questions both media members and investors will ask. If you’re planning an investor conference call in conjunction with the announcement, you will want to prepare the presenters for public speaking. This will both enhance public perception and set a baseline speaking style on which to build and improve in the future. Busy executives sometimes leave Q&A prep or presentation rehearsal until the last minute — if they practice at all. But if you include this section in your plan, you increase the probability that training will occur. The benefits of closer rapport with investors and a clearer understanding of the company’s key messages will far outweigh any perceived time costs.

 

Introduce your CEO

An added wrinkle in succession communications is that the planning doesn’t end with the announcement. Whether the new CEO is promoted from within or appointed from the outside, you’ll want to spend the next several weeks fostering relationships with the analyst and investor community. The talking points you crafted back in step one will become a godsend when the CEO is meeting investors and deciding what to say. To communicate the strategy in greater detail and generate support from investors, consider hosting an investor / analyst day within the first year of the CEO’s appointment. Generating support from your investors is no guarantee the strategy will achieve its aims, but that support can help make the road ahead smoother when speed bumps arise.

Whether the board planned your CEO’s succession in months or minutes, the goal for your communications strategy should be to present a thoughtful, orderly transition and to establish positive investor relationships with your new CEO. A thorough communication plan can make even a hurried transition appear orderly, so focus on the details. By doing so, you’ll be more likely to effectively communicate the CEO’s transition, alleviating investor uncertainty and garnering support for the successor.

 

Maureen Wolff is CEO at Sharon Merrill Associates. She is a National Investor Relations Institute Fellow, Senior Roundtable Member and Honorary NIRI Boston Director. She is a trusted advisor to CEOs, CFOs and boards of directors on critical communications issues, including corporate governance, shareholder activism and proxy contests, CEO succession planning and disclosure issues.

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Q4 Insights: How relative strength influences the market

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The market moves fast. That’s a fact. With 11 sectors to watch, institutional investors have to decide which sectors are the strongest and which are the weakest. They must decide on where to put money to work (overweight position) and where to reduce exposure (underweight position) in order to beat a benchmark. To help make key investment decisions, Portfolio Managers rely on Relative Strength, an indicator designed to help investors compare the performance of a stock, exchange-traded fund (ETF) or mutual fund to that of the overall market. The top-down process often starts at the pinnacle of the GICs triangle, selecting a sector that is strongest, choosing an industry group, then deciding on specific equities to put money to work in.

To better understand the impact — and influence — of relative strength on investment decisions, let’s analyze 10 sector SPDR ETFs relative to the S&P 500, which include: Consumer Discretionary (XLY), Consumer Staples (XLP), Energy (XLE), Financials (XLF), Health Care (XLV), Industrials (XLI), Materials (XLB), Real Estate (XLRE), Technology (XLK-includes Telecommunications), and Utilities (XLU). The relative strength analysis allows us to see which sectors are outperforming, underperforming, and losing/gaining momentum over the last year. The slope of each line in the graph below tells us the direction of the trend.

 

 

Outperforming sectors include the XLF, XLK, and XLI. For instance, XLF began to significantly outperform all other sectors following the Presidential election due to hopes of deregulation and higher interest rates. Higher rates bode well for the banking sector as net interest margins will expand, in turn raising profitability. The XLK has also been a top performing sector and continues to build strength. Companies in the technology sector are disrupting the market, especially companies such as: Nvidia, Facebook, Apple, Alphabet (Google), and Microsoft. Additionally, this sector has proven resilient and represents long-term growth opportunities.

Comprised of aerospace and defense, industrial machinery, tools, lumber production, construction, waste management, manufactured housing, cement and metal fabrication, XLI is another sector that has performed nicely over the last 12 months. Strong performance from industrial stocks signal that we have demand for building construction and manufactured products. This sector is the third best performer in the last 12 months despite the largest weighted stock, General Electric, being a weak performer.

On the other end of the spectrum, XLE is the poorest performing sector through this period and continues to make new lows. Trend-following strategies argue for selling energy stocks in favor of stronger trends elsewhere in the market. Numerous independent studies, including a well documented one entitled Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency (Narasimhan Jegadeesh; Sheridan Titman) have found that the strong usually continue to get stronger and the weak usually get weaker (momentum persistence); therefore, investing with the trend is another common theme among many top-down Portfolio Managers.

 

Key findings from our analysis of relative strength in real time show: XLU, XLK, and XLV gaining momentum, while XLF is losing momentum. This could potentially be a sign that low yields are here to stay. We are now seeing money move from the XLF into sectors such as the XLU and XLRE which benefit from the drop-in yields. The move lower on the 10-year note is very surprising given that the Federal Reserve has been increasing rates. We put in a double top around 2.62 percent, failed on the move higher from 2.1-2.4 percent, and are now testing the 2.1 percent support level.

 

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The upturn in the XLV’s strength is on the heels of Gilead’s acquisition of Kite Pharma. We are seeing different names across the biotech sector surge due to M&A hopes, making this an area that investors will watch closely. The XLK continues to move higher and saw a “buy the dip” scenario in early July when we saw a technology sell-off. This was immediately seen as a buying opportunity with money rushing back into the sector. Since the pullback, the XLK has been the strongest sector in the market. The falling slope in the XLP is also telling, indicating that institutional investors are more comfortable with a risk on trade as opposed to being risk averse.

* Data is of 9/1 market close. 

Advantages for IROs & Market Intelligence

IROs can benefit from analyzing both relative strength and momentum in a number of ways. Here’s how:

  • Gain insight into a sector to see if it is gaining momentum or losing it.
  • Gain reasoning and insight behind increased institutional activity, liquidations, and sector rotation.
  • Understand if an institutional investor is trying to accumulate an overweight or underweight position.
  • Have an edge in giving the C-level real-time money flows.
  • Understand how a stock is behaving relative to its peers.

 

Rodney Raanan is the Director of Capital Markets & Market Intelligence at Q4 Inc. Rodney works directly with C-level executives of publicly traded companies by providing real time money flows, stock activity updates, options analysis, and technical analysis. Rodney has over 10 years of capital markets experience as an equity trader and an analyst. Follow Rodney on Twitter and Linkedin

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Webinar Recap: Let’s examine the power of surveillance.

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On September 6th, Q4 hosted a panel discussion on capital markets intelligence. Adam Frederick, SVP, Intelligence at Q4 hosted a jam-packed conversation between Karen M. King, VP, Investor Relations & Corporate Communication, LivaNova; Matt Danziger, VP of Investor Relations, Pure Storage; and Mike Coffey, VP Business Development, Intelligence, Q4. The conversation explored industry best practices and offered valuable takeaways on the rise of quantitative analytics and how new technologies are empowering IROs with real-time insights and actionable intelligence surrounding trading, valuation and market expectations. 

 

#1: Traditional “stock surveillance” vs. technology driven solutions

Stock surveillance used to rely solely on human analysis of trade settlement data. Considering efforts were manpower-driven, there were always limitations on data mining. “It was a much simpler time,” said Mike Coffey. “We only had to deal with two major exchanges, NYSE or Nasdaq. There weren’t any dark pools or off market transactions.” Fast forward to today, where we have 16 stock exchanges and Nasdaq and NYSE trade just a fraction of the volume. The market has more data points than ever before. The good news is that surveillance providers are able to cypher sentiment and volatility expectations in real time and IROs are able to better understand the market structure, what’s driving performance, forward-looking market expectations, and proactive activism monitoring.

 

#2: Modern market intelligence: An IRO’s perspective

As with any new technology or solution, users of today’s surveillance may not fully grasp the value of the data they have access to, and how to turn that information into actionable insights. With this in mind, the panel explored how essential surveillance is to an IR strategy. “Whether it’s targeting new investors, managing expectations, or communicating a new strategy, surveillance helps you achieve the goals you’re trying to achieve and measure that impact over time,” agreed the panelists. At any given day, surveillance makes it possible to answer: what’s happening in the market today?

Gaining access to critical data that helps tell a more complete story, enables IR professionals to be proactive in how they communicate to not only shareholders but to their c-suite and the board. For example, Karen uses surveillance pre earnings or upcoming investor days to track the behavior of investors and get the pulse of the market. “Are investors anticipating that something big is going to happen or will it be a normal quarter? The insights I garner from surveillance allow me to be proactive and share information with my management well in advance of the event — preparing us for what’s to come,” commented Karen.

 

#3: Quantitative analysis provides actionable intel for IROs

Good investor relations is about communicating effectively, shaping perceptions and attracting the right investors, at the right time. Having access to accurate and timely intelligence is critical in effectively making decisions and managing stakeholder engagement. Our panelists shared how they integrate surveillance into their day-to-day to measure peer performance, understand market trends, or monitor shareholder activity. For example, Matt uses the tool to better understand the makeup of his cap table and his top 20 shareholders. He also looks to how many growth funds are invested in his company; how many of them have been around for three years; who the longer-term value oriented shareholders coming up in the cap table are; and who he should be going after and proactively putting management in front of. In Matt’s opinion: knowing what’s going to happen in the next 3- 5 years is going to define what type of shareholder will own the company.

 

#4 Integrating stock surveillance into your day-to-day

Back in the day, it was relatively easy to get real-time, valuable color on trading, simply by calling the floor specialist. As we all know, however, those days are long gone.  And today, we find ourselves in a new world where technology and cutting-edge analytics are filling the void left by the disappearance of the floor specialist.

With today’s technology, IROs can now determine what is impacting stock price (is it stock specific, peer related, passive investing impact, etc.). “We can easily break down this data on a daily basis. Actually on a 15 minute basis,” shared Mike. Having key insight in real time is extremely valuable for an IRO. “Going on the road, telling your message and being able to see if your message is resonating is key.”

 

As the market becomes more complex, IROs face a growing need to decipher the noise and understand how their stock is truly performing and why. You can watch the webinar here for more on how to incorporate market intelligence into your day to day to be more proactive and strategic.

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GDPR: What you need to know about Europe’s strictest data privacy regulation

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The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is possibly the most important change in data privacy regulation over the past two decades.  While some companies have started working towards the GDPR compliance, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2018, more than 50 percent of companies affected by the GDPR will not be in full compliance with its requirements. With close to 160 GDPR requirements around data collection, storage, and use, to mandating a 72-hour notification for a personal data breach, this legislation will greatly impact European companies.

 

About the GDPR

The GDPR is designed to protect individuals in the EU from privacy and data breaches in an increasingly data-driven world. In fact, its main purpose is to give individuals more control over their personal data, impose stricter rules on companies handling it and make sure companies embrace new technology to process the influx of data produced. It should be noted that the GDPR will affect any organization that stores personal information of individuals in the EU, regardless of global business presence. And while the GDPR will harmonize data protection laws across the whole of the EU, which theoretically makes it easier for non-EU organizations to comply, the new requirements will be stricter, making compliance more challenging.

 

Ramping up for the GDPR

With less than a year to go before the GDPR kicks in, here’s a quick rundown of what you need know:

How to comply with the GDPR: Organizations need to look at how and what data they collect and process, how they garner consent to use that data and how to update gaps in their data handling policies, including but not limited to: data protection, security, breach, and retention. In saying that, companies should review how they handle communications, monitoring, email, and website cookie notice and privacy statement for EU residents.

The GDPR also introduces a new higher standard for consent, which is one of the most widely used grounds for lawful processing of personal data. Clearer and more granular opt-in/opt-out methods mean consent must be unbundled from other terms and conditions, giving individuals clear and defined ways to withdraw consent. 

TIP: Public authorities or organizations that engage in large-scale systematic monitoring or processing of personal data for EU residents should appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO). 

 

Risk of non-GDPR compliance:  More data is produced today than ever before, which makes managing data on a large scale risky for organizations, especially for those that don’t have a strategy in place or update their systems to handle the influx.  When the GDPR is implemented in May 2018, organizations that suffer a data breach, which includes anything from someone’s name or address to their IP address and everything in between can be fined up to 4 percent global turnover or €20 million depending on which one is higher. In addition, organizations will be legally obliged to report a breach within 72 hours of it being discovered.

And while a fine is a huge consequence to face, let’s not forget the impacts that are harder to quantify such as brand reputation damage, a decrease in trust, and a negative news cycle which leads to a decrease in future revenue and lost business opportunities.

 

GDPR compliance improves costs:  While getting to full compliance can be difficult and complicated, once achieved, organizations will likely see significant benefits – especially for corporations looking to expand in Europe. Since the data protection regulation will apply uniformly throughout Europe, organizations won’t need to consult local lawyers to ensure local compliance, which results in direct savings and legal certainty. 

 

What can you do to get ready for the GDPR?

To fully protect personal data, you need to know what data you are collecting, how you are collecting it, what you are doing with it, who is processing it, and so on. With the GDPR enforcement date just around the corner, here are a few recommendations to help you get GDPR-ready:

  • Review your customer and vendor contracts and existing policies to comply with the GDPR. Develop standards and processes to define the Personal Data lifecycle and help ensure data transparency, accuracy, accessibility, completeness, security, and consistency.
  • Identify what data is retained for EU individuals. Document and map what personal data is stored. Identify where it came from and the reason you store it. Create a checklist as to why you need to store it. Remove any unused data that is not required.
  • Raise awareness internally with your employees, subsidiaries and board-level associates of legislation.
  • Update your security policies and procedures to ensure they are easily accessible and easy to understand.
  • Evaluate risks, strengths, and opportunities and establish governance for data usage and access.
  • Encryption policies should include strong encryption for both data at rest and in transit.

 

Vee Punia is Director, IT & Infrastructure at Q4 and holds over 17 years of experience in IT Infrastructure Management, Security operations, ITIL Change Management and Service Delivery of Enterprise or SaaS platform. 

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Webcasting: How do you engage with investors in a virtual world?

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It’s no surprise that in this hyper-digital world, an individual’s attention span has dropped drastically. In fact, according to a recent Microsoft Corp study, the human attention span is a mere eight seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. To put it put it into perspective: a goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds (that’s one more second than you or I have). For IROs, life’s distractions can present some challenges. In order to effectively communicate your company’s vision, strategic advantages and performance to your current shareholders base or prospective investors you need to be able to reach them — and keep them engaged. And with more and more people engaging online, it’s more important than ever to ensure your digital events (webcasts) capture your audience, pull them into the dialogue, and keep them engaged from start to finish.

Our events team spends day-in and day-out producing events for our clients (In fact, this year to date they have produced just over 1,200 webcasts.) We asked them: how can IROs better engage with a digital audience? Here’s what they had to say.

 

Look into investor behaviour

Knowing your audience is key to a successful event, especially for quarterly earnings calls and virtual investor days. The beauty of using a webcasting tool is that you’re able to capture key insights of registrants ahead of the event and understand their journey the day of and how they engage with your content. You’ll learn behaviours on how they engage (do they skip ahead in the deck, do they let you control the slides) and when they dropped off the call. If you notice that a certain percentage of listeners drop off at a certain point, you’re able to analyze the situation, pivot and see if you can impact behaviours for future events. You’ll also gain insight into live viewers who download the on-demand version to catch up on missed content. Knowing as much about your audience ahead of an event will help you to better prepare and create a winning digital experience.

 

Consider the digital audience

If you’re hosting an in-person event (let’s say investor day) and streaming it online to expand reach and engagement, it is key to creating an omni-experience — meaning that those online are experiencing the same event as those in person. Ensure you think about all the components that make an engaging experience and integrate them into the online experience. Sync your webcasting team with the AV team to ensure that your online audience is seeing and hearing it all. This is especially important during the Q&A portion when there is a mic runner moving between attendees. You want those online to hear the entire conversation. Ensure your visuals are clear and engaging. The average person starts to nod off around the 10 minute mark of a presentation. If it’s hard to hold the attention of the room, imagine how hard it is to hold onto those online, who can be easily distracted.

 

Expand the webcast shelf life

Webcasting an earnings call or an investor day is not a one-time event. The value of webcasting comes from having a longer-term impact and greater reach once it’s recorded. This provides you with the ability to connect with a larger group of people at any time. Recorded content lives on your IR website as a lens into your company that investors can consume quickly. It provides you with the opportunity to tell your story your way to someone who you may not have the opportunity to connect with in person. For anyone who has attended the webcast, a recorded version enables them to share your message with their peers. Allowing investors to watch a recorded version at their own pace means that they can absorb your message their way, or pick up on information they missed during the live event.  

 

How to host a successful virtual event

Here are some tips to help you plan a successful online event.

 

Communicate your event early: It’s imperative that an announcement goes out with enough time to let the investors know the date of the event. Ensure that the link is shared on your IR website and emailed out the conference call numbers to anyone that you would like to attend.

Schedule a dry run: To ensure that the presentation is smooth overall, always schedule a dry run at least 24 hours before the event with all participating speakers. Check your audio because when investors are unable to understand your message on the call, they may tune out or drop off.

Prep your CEO: Provide them with a checklist that focuses on what you’ve told investors during that quarter so they can remain consistent. When you manage to review this checklist with your CEO early enough, you’ll be able to work in their comments and tweak messaging more quickly once final numbers have come in. Remind them that it’s important to keep the audience engaged, in person and online.

After the event:  Post the recorded version as soon as possible in your archived earnings call section on your IR website.

 

Dinka Lutvic is the marketing manager at Q4. Based in Toronto, Canada, Dinka is passionate about how technology is changing the role of IROs. 

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MiFID II: Its impact will be global

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In today’s global market, regulations know no geographic boundaries. This will become obvious — perhaps painfully so — on January 3, 2018 when the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II comes into play. While this regulation will drastically change the way European markets operate, its impact will be felt on a global scale.

Preparing for MiFID II is a difficult process for many, given that the directive brings some of the most wide-reaching changes to financial market regulation that the industry has ever seen. And while the arrival of MiFID II is imminent, it’s surprising the number of North American companies that remain uncertain over how to best prepare for the impacts of this new regulation.

Think only European-based corporations need to prepare for MiFID II? Think again.

A world with less research coverage

Under MiFID II, asset managers in Europe will have to pay a fee for sell-side research, rather than continue to use ‘soft dollars’ that come from commissions. Or, to look at it another way, sell-side analysts will now charge a fee for its research that European institutions will have to pay. If this fee becomes a revenue generator in Europe for sell-side firms, how long before banks and research firms begin to charge for all global research?

In Europe the expectation is that the fee-based research will cause institutional investors to utilize sell-side research far less than they do today — and source it from a much smaller universe of third-party banks and research firms or produce it themselves. For European corporates and IROs that means fewer analysts to cover their stock and more institutions to answer to directly.

So if the fee based research model catches on globally, all non-European IROs will also need to prepare for the realities of a world with lower levels of research coverage.

A World Without “Free Targeting”?

Corporate issuers will most likely find themselves with fewer sell-side analysts covering them in a post-MiFID II environment. This shines the light on a potentially larger problem for IROs and their senior management teams — how to get in front of the right investors at the right time. In a post-MiFID II world, IROs are going to find fewer and smaller corporate access desks to support their coverage universe, let alone those non-covered companies looking for “free targeting.” Therefore, IROs and their senior management teams will now be required to incorporate new strategies and solutions to engage investors and drive value creation.

One unique benefit to issuers that may actually end up coming out of MiFID II is that new solutions will emerge from non-traditional sources to better enable the connections between qualified, vetted investors and the companies they are actually looking to invest in.

MiFID II: A World of Change

MiFID II arrives in January 2018 and will leave an indelible mark on how sell-side research and corporate access is conducted —  and for whom — worldwide. With the EU as the second largest market in the world, this kind of sweeping legislation will most certainly bleed into other regions, including North America. Make no mistake — change is coming, and it’s probably coming sooner than most of us think. In Europe, most companies already have a fully-implemented post-MiFID II solution in place. Here in North America the regulation has garnered a few headlines but does not seem to have the full attention of IROs in this region. And this could prove to be a costly mistake on their part. MiFID II is a game changer —  for everyone. IROs in North America need to be as cognizant and prepared in addressing the new market realities of MiFID II as their brethren in Europe.

The good news is there are solutions out there and time is still on your side, for now. Forward-thinking IROs will be actively preparing for this change so that they are best positioned to address the void MiFID II will create in the global financial market. This includes incorporating new technologies and solutions that are taking shape as we speak — most coming from non-traditional corporate access players —  that will more effectively and efficiently match the right buyers, with the right issuers, at the right time.

Are you prepared for a post-MiFID II world?

 

Adam Frederick is the senior vice president of intelligence at Q4 Inc and blogs regularly about surveillance and its applications for IROs.

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Mobile optimization: The art and science behind it

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The numbers don’t lie — according to GSMA Intelligence, the mobile industry now has five billion unique mobile subscribers. In other words, more than two-thirds of the global population is now connected to a mobile service. And of these billions of subscribers, 91 percent of them say they are in reach of their mobile devices 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s no surprise, then, that demand for a mobile experience that is content-rich, and delivered in layouts that are device-appropriate is growing rapidly. More than half of all searches done on Google are done via mobile device. In many industries, mobile share of traffic can far exceed 50 percent. There are many Americans — up to 20 percent of the population in certain income brackets — for whom a mobile device is the only device they use to access the web from home.

Therefore, companies looking to engage its stakeholders through differentiated content need to also think carefully about the user-experience and how that content is delivered. But there is more to mobile than eye-catching design and user-friendly functionality.

Successfully engaging any audience online requires a clear understanding of how users are consuming your content. In other words, ‘smart’ technology requires equally smart tools. And there’s a science and an art to making smart tools.

Studies show that placement is critical — this is particularly true in mobile settings, where visitors on smaller devices are acutely focused on what’s in the center of the screen. Similarly, research has confirmed that a picture is, in fact, worth at least a thousand words in the digital realm. More so, likely, in the case of mobile where the user is typically looking for easy access to the answers he/she seeks.

The art and science to higher engagement.

So, as you think of your mobile strategy, here are some elements for you to consider:

Concise content: the key to achieving stellar content for mobile is about tightening your writing. Get straight to the point with an “answer-ready” tone and focus that addresses what’s top of mind for your audience. Create a mental list of why investors should invest in your company, and build our your content using those points as the focus of your message.

 

Strong and short headlines: the expression “less is more” could not be more true when it comes to headlines. Get creative, and use a font/color that catches the attention of the user.

 

Interactivity: mobile-ready content also means delivering your message in interactive ways. Incorporate scrolling features, links to secondary pages, video, and/or drag and drop functionalities for optimal engagement, and increased metrics.

 

Visual assets: think intuitive icons with brief descriptions, video, and/or high-res graphics that simplify your message and helps expedite the visitor’s learning curve.

 

Access: keep critical information front and center for visitors so they won’t have to click around to find it, minimizing page exit rate on your mobile site.

 

Ultimately, your ability to engage your audience online in a mobile-dependant world hinges on your ability to deliver an experience tailored to mobile. Companies that win in this environment are those that provide information their audience wants through the channels that empower them to easily access it when and how they want.

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Earnings: How Q4 Desktop helps IROs stay ahead of the street

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It’s ironic that the period of time just before earnings are released is often referred to as a “quiet period,” as the period is anything but quiet. There is a litany of to-dos heading into earnings, such as: compiling financial and operational results, verifying projections, building board reports and presentations, preparing financial exhibits and SEC documents, scheduling webcasts and conference calls, analyzing peer filings and industry sentiment, etc. — and that’s all before the earnings release and prepared remarks for the senior leadership team can be drafted. While we may not necessarily be able to shorten the to-do list, we do make this anything-but-quiet period more time efficient and manageable for IR teams through our flagship product, Q4 Desktop.

 

Save time with universal keyword search

One of the most commonly asked questions from management leading up to the earnings announcement is: what did we say last quarter? This is often followed by: what did the competition say? and what did the sell-side say? Thanks to Q4 Desktop, what once took days to sort, compile and categorize can now be accessed and analyzed with precision in minutes.

Q4 Desktop’s powerful cross content search functionality lets users search for keywords in transcripts and research notes for their own company, or their peers. Want to see what the Street thought about EPS growth on your peers last quarter? Simply search “EPS growth” and you’ll immediately see all results within Transcripts or Research that contain that exact phrase. Filter by your Peer List to see results specific to your defined peers. Click on the link of the underlying document and the phrase (“EPS growth”) will be highlighted every time it’s mentioned within that transcript/report.  

Not only does this actionable intelligence help a company effectively maintain its message continuum from quarter to quarter, it also enables management to focus on the topics that are most important, potentially anticipate questions coming during the Q&A, and aid messaging in any post-earnings follow-up meetings with investors.

 

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Anticipate street expectations

Technology has left an indelible imprint on the financial markets — from the manner in which investment ideas are developed to the speed at which trades are executed. Among other things, this puts enormous pressure on IROs to understand the ever-changing factors that are influencing valuation. By using Q4’s proprietary forward-looking indicators (sentiment, volatility, and expected trading range), IROs can anticipate the Street’s view on their company. Our predictive intelligence provides a 360-degree view of the equity and options markets, empowering companies to see where money is flowing, what the market’s expectations are for the near-term future, and anticipate how the Street may react given a certain outcome. This added perspective is particularly impactful in a company’s message development and materials preparation for an earnings announcement or ahead of any major event.

 

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Case Study: ABM Industries

On December 13, 2016, ABM Industries (Ticker: ABM) reported earnings after the closing bell — beating Wall Street’s EPS estimates by $0.01 but missing topline revenue expectations. The stock subsequently lost 11 percent over the course of the following 2 days — or roughly $325M in market cap. This may have come as a surprise to the street, given their shares had just hit an all-time high right before earnings. 

By late November, more than two weeks before earnings, and with ABM’s shares trading at all-time highs, Q4’s forward-looking Sentiment indicator turned extremely bearish, suggesting investors were beginning to price in near-term downside for the stock that wasn’t necessarily visible in the common equity. At the same time, Q4’s forward-looking Volatility indicator — a measure of the market’s expectations of future wild price swings — gapped higher, as traders were apparently looking for an outsized move. By analyzing both the Sentiment indicator’s bearishness and Volatility indicator’s outsized volatility expectations, ABM would have had more than two weeks’ notice prior to earnings that something was off. Despite their shares being at all-time highs, the underpinnings of the market were beginning to shift. Investors were becoming cautious, if not flat out bearish, and bracing for a substantial drop in share price.

 

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Better understand your shareholder base

As noted above, technology has changed the way investors identify and research investment ideas. Thankfully, technology can also be used to change the way companies identify who is tracking them, in some cases long before an initial position is taken in the stock. With Q4 Desktop’s website analytics, IROs can monitor which institutions are hitting their IR website, when, and what information they are reviewing. This can be extremely useful for companies wanting to better understand trends in the style or types of firms coming to their site. Additionally, by monitoring web analytics, users can see what content is being viewed most, which reports or materials are being downloaded by which institution, what parts of the site are they visiting, and for how long?

Unearthing this kind of real-time intelligence isn’t just a “nice to have.” As an IRO, particularly around earnings season, your job is all about telling a story– a story about the future health of your company and why it means now is a good time to buy. Knowing your audience and understanding their behaviors goes a long way into how you “sell” your product (company). Consider your website analytics key insight into what may be driving investor expectations, and potentially even shedding light on issues or topics that may surface in the Q&A. In some cases, this may even serve as an early-warning detection system for activism.

 

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Whether researching keywords to help better hone your message, utilizing predictive intelligence to help proactively anticipate post-earnings reactions, or investigating website analytics to gain insight into investor behaviors, Q4’s Desktop is a key pre-earnings driver of efficiency and preparedness. When viewed all together, this information is a mosaic that helps guide IROs through rough waters. Earnings season arrives quickly each quarter and brings with it a long list of challenges. With Q4 Desktop, IROs can now remove the worries around timeliness, accuracy and insight from that list.

 

Syfur Rahman is Senior Analyst – Advisory at Q4.

The post Earnings: How Q4 Desktop helps IROs stay ahead of the street appeared first on Q4 Blog.

Get crisis ready: An interview with David Calusdian, President, Sharon Merrill Associates

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When faced with a crisis, even senior IR executives can benefit from an outside perspective, particularly when that perspective is based on years of experience. We caught up with David Calusdian, president of the Boston-based strategic communications firm Sharon Merrill Associates, to learn how the firm advises clients on crisis management issues and the most effective strategies to protect corporate reputation and credibility.

 

Lorena Reyes (Q4): Can you share some recent examples of your crisis communications work, to give readers a sense of the many issues that can ensnare a public company, and discuss how you solve them?

David Calusdian (DC): Today the potential for a crisis lurks in any piece of market-moving information that originates from somewhere other than the company. It could be a social media post about an impending management shakeup, an FDA product recall or a data breach. The potential scenarios are endless, but an effective response shares a few common themes:

  • Develop the right message. Recently we were called on to communicate the termination of a long-time CEO. The board was supportive of the company’s strategy, but disagreed with the way it was implemented by management. We developed messaging for the transition news release that positioned the incoming CEO as having the right combination of skills and experience to put the strategy in motion.  Right after the announcement we coordinated a non-deal roadshow (NDR) so the new CEO could communicate face-to-face with sell-side analysts and top shareholders. We spent a good deal of time coaching the CEO on messaging and Q&A. A post-NDR survey showed investors were “very optimistic” about the company’s ability to execute its strategy in the next 12-18 months.
  • Get ahead of the crisis. If there’s one lesson we’ve tried to drive home in our years of doing crisis communications, it’s the importance of getting in front of the issue. A consumer products company we worked with was notified of a safety concern about one of its products that led to a voluntary product recall. Once the cause of the malfunction was identified, we developed a video message from the CEO and other content to explain in detail the steps the company was taking to ensure consumer safety.  To make sure that everyone was on the same page, we conducted media training with the C-suite and corporate spokespeople. When the recall announcement was made, it was distributed through multiple channels – social media, email and direct mail – to ensure maximum reach. Investors rated “very favorably” the company’s willingness to get ahead of the crisis and communicate openly with consumers and investors.
  • Don’t be afraid to acknowledge mistakes.There’s no secret formula for turning bad news into good news. But because emotion plays such a significant role in how people perceive messages, a little humility can go a long way toward repairing credibility. Recently we worked with a financial services company that had compromised sensitive client information by failing to adhere to its own security procedures.  The company owned up to its mistakes, put new regulations in place to ensure compliance and communicated openly with customers and financial regulators. Investors responded favorably to the way the company handled the issue and said they were confident the steps taken would prevent future breaches from taking place.

 

Q4: In your opinion, what defines a “good” crisis communications strategy?

DC: Crisis communications is about triage, so we use the letters EMT – Evaluation, Messaging and Training. First, evaluate the situation and anticipate the reaction of key stakeholders such as employees, customers, investors, community leaders and the public. Next, develop messaging (news releases, talking points, FAQs and social media content) that directly address stakeholder concerns. Don’t put out news in dribs and drabs. If you want to stay in control of events, make sure all known relevant information is disseminated. Don’t hold back an ugly fact only to have it discovered two hours later by a reporter. The media is not your friend, but any hint of deception will surely make them an enemy. The final piece is training. Anyone speaking on behalf of the company should receive training in how to deliver prepared remarks and respond to hostile Q&A. Role-play various scenarios to make sure whoever is standing in front of the camera is comfortable doing so. How you communicate is almost as important as what you communicate.

 

Q4: What’s your process for message development? Can you share any tips about good messaging versus bad?

DC: In any crisis, the foundation of message development is honesty. You must assume the details will ultimately come out, so put the bad news on the table early – and on your own terms. Tell people what happened, how it happened and what you’re doing to solve it. Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) handling of the 1982 Tylenol poisonings is the classic blueprint in how to effectively deal with a crisis. J&J put the interest of consumers first, and its stock quickly recovered as a result.

 

Q4:   I’ve heard people say, ‘you should define your message’. The point being, you need to get out there and talk to the issue before the market does. How quickly do you need to get out there? And how should you respond to those painting a very different story?

DC: From the company’s perspective, the question of when to go public with a crisis depends a lot on the circumstances. You want to get ahead of bad news to maintain or restore credibility. With the pervasiveness of social media, that’s not easy. In a responsive situation, that usually means issuing a holding statement as soon as possible. The only caveat is make sure you have enough information about the crisis before you push ‘send.’ For example, it may be premature to issue a recall based on one or two reports about a defective product. You don’t know whether it’s a faulty component from a third-party supplier, product misuse or an isolated manufacturing error. But it might be prudent to issue a holding statement telling the public you are investigating the issue.  Your communications approach depends on the facts, but it’s often a judgement call made based on experience and the amount of information you have.

 

Q4:  You have a number of audiences to include in your crisis communication – employees, investors, customers, the board — the list goes on. How do you decide  what to share with which stakeholders?

DC:  I want to be careful to distinguish between facts and emphasis. Objective information needs to be the same no matter the audience. Don’t tell investors the chemical spill is under control while warning residents within a five-mile radius to evacuate due to the potential for explosions. That said, tailor the message to the audience. If a plant is closing, employees want to know how long they’ll have a job. Customers want to know how you plan to service them. Investors care about the bottom line. Assume anything you tell one group will quickly be seen or heard by the others.  But the order in which that you present that information will be different.

 

Q4: Talk to me about how Chipotle handled their series of food poisoning crises? How do you rate their strategy?

DC: On the positive side, Chipotle seemed to say the right things. On the negative side, the company has been criticized for taking too long to respond and for not maximizing the power of social media to get their messages out to the broadest possible audience. From my perspective, they were a bit murky about what was going on and they did not offer a solution that would make consumers feel safe eating at the restaurant. If you asked people what’s different at Chipotle now versus prior to the E. coli and Norovirus outbreaks, my sense is consumers would be hard-pressed for an answer.

 

Q4: What crisis communications advice would you give someone new to IR? What would you tell someone who has been around and perhaps has dealt with a crisis over the years?

DC: For someone new to IR, I’d recommend relying on the experience of others.  As we discussed earlier, there’s no one-size-fits-all response to a crisis. There are many grey areas. And there’s no substitute for experience. Seek the advice of peers within the company to understand the ramifications of an issue and gauge the potential reaction of key stakeholders.

For IROs who have faced crises previously, it’s critical to stay current on best practices. Social media and the 24/7 news cycle have dramatically shortened the amount of time you have to respond. Your ability to get relevant information out to the public quickly – and through the right channels – is critical. The time to plan is now. While many experienced IROs have an excellent compass in terms of what to say, it’s important to be up to speed on the best way to say it.

 

David Calusdian, president at Sharon Merrill Associates, oversees the implementation of investor relations programs, counsels companies in crisis situations, coaches senior executives in presentation skills and provides strategic counsel to clients on numerous communications issues, such as corporate disclosure, proxy proposals, shareholder activism and earnings guidance.

The post Get crisis ready: An interview with David Calusdian, President, Sharon Merrill Associates appeared first on Q4 Blog.

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