Alacra Inc: A Case Study

Analysis
Dounia Marbouh-- 100050079
THE INDUSTRY
After the commercialization of Internet & the
proliferation of PC computers/laptops in the
90s: The Business Information Services
Industry was not well defined.

The size of the global business information

industry was more than $100 billion in annual
revenues.

The industry included private and government

publishers of information; content/database
providers; content aggregators…etc.
THE IDEA

 The founders: Goldstein and Angle.

 The Problem? Users collect business information from
different publishers/vendors.
 Market Opportunity:
 Provide quantitative data to analysts in financial
services and other analytical industries in one place.
 Provide Business Information in spreadsheets to
instantly begin using the information.
 A service that would decrease time, cost and effort.
THE FIRST OFFERING
Michael Angle: Chief Technology
Officer at Knight-Ridder subsidiary,
Technimetrics.
He used his technical to build a
technology that can take quantitative
data and deliver it in an easy-to-use
spreadsheet format.
Steven Goldstein: Vice President of
Strategic Planning at Knight-Ridder.
He used his strategic planning
expertise to attract publishers and
convince them to license their data to
Alacra.
THE FIRST OFFERING

The First Offering in 1996: .xls

It segmented data into six Data could be directly The .xls offering had a
categories: companies, loaded into a company’s built-in system that
industries, financial information systems and allowed Alacra’s
markets, demographics, analytical models or saved customers to track the cost
countries, & economic as Excel or Lotus of the data and allocate it
statistics. spreadsheet file. to clients’ projects.
THE JOURNEY
The company
name changed
(Ex. Data
Downlink)
$1.5 million
$4 million $3.6 million
investment
raised capital raised
from Barra
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
First online Access to
Thomson’s Collapse of
service
Investext Internet
called .xls
collection bubble

$4 million
raised
capital
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS
Alacra
Portals
(May, Alacra
Alacra 2001) Book
Premium (June,
2001)
The Company’s
Alacra
Products & Complian
ce (2006)
Products & Solutions
Store
(August,
Solutions 2005)

Current Connectio
Awarenes ns (2006)
s (2006)
Concorda
nce (2006)
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS

Alacra Portals: launched in May 2000. It enables easier and user-

driven personalization that could be tailored to the needs of
customers.

Alacra Book: launched in June 2001. A services that aggregated

company-specific information from multiple sources and let
users publish this information in a single customized PDF.

Alacra Store: launched in August 2005. A public e-commerce

website hat enabled business information users to find and purchase
research solely on a transaction basis.
ALACRA’s PRODUCTS

Concordance: provided a unified view of company information

across all content sources and databases it licensed. It’s the
“backbone” of Alacra as it is the information engine.

Compliance: enabled banks and brokers to employ a consistent

and comprehensive process for KYC.

Current Awareness: compiled timely, relevant, and premium

business and financial information on individuals or companies.

Connections: provided corporate boards and executives with

information on over 30,000 companies around the world.
PRODUT DEVELOPMENT

 Alacra followed a customer-centric approach to

product innovation.

 Some of the products were tailored according to

the need of the custoers.

 Alacra was responsive and eager to respond to its

customers’ needs.
ALACRA’s GROWTH

19 of the top-20
The Company’s global
investment
Customers banks
Included 9 of the top-10
global
accounting/cons
ulting firms
Hundreds of
 By 2007, Alacra had $17.6 million commercial
in revenues (80% coming from big banks,
firms) and $1 million in profit. corporations,
law firms…etc.
THE RELAPSE

 The profit was expected to grow to $2 million by 2010.

 In 2008, the financial crisis spread from the U.S to
Europe and other parts of the world.
 Amidst the financial crisis, the customers and prospects
were cutting their information spends.
 Alacra’s largest customers segment were in serious
financial troubles.
THE CRISIS IMPACT

 Street Pulse Project: how to proceed with a new

promising project?
 How to move forward with the uncertain and
turbulent times?

 Take Away: Companies should diversify

their customers’ portfolio.
ALACRA TODAY

 Opus Corp., is a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) based compliance

solutions.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION, ANY
QUESTIONS?