FreePint Bar and FreePint Feed

Keeping up with what's going on in search and online resources is an ongoing challenge.

Become a fan of FUMSI on Facebook »

Redundancies, cost reductions, mergers and business failures in the last year or two mean that users have learned to work with less, accepting the 'good enough' concept, says Bill Noorlander of market data consulting and outsourcing firm BST in a thought-provoking piece on global changes in content usage and sourcing. As a result, management of data sourcing has become more professional, with staff specialising in demand management and cost optimisation. When it comes to cost concessions, vendors are being asked to share the pain; the mould has been broken, he says, and even a revived economy will not remake it.

It's all borne out by FreePint's own economic impact research, which in some ways reinforces but also challenges the anecdotal information about reduced staffing. The survey of nearly 450 respondents finds that 55% have experienced no staff reductions, compared with 14% who have suffered a significant decrease. But a clear outcome is that centres are working with reduced budgets and finding creative ways to cope with all changes - most significantly by relying more on free resources.

But is the free data enough on its own? Not surprisingly, David Gudgin of market research publisher Euromonitor International would argue not. Certainly Euromonitor's data sourcing begins with 'the usual suspects' - national statistics offices, government ministries, banks and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. But, as his examples show, there's then a painstaking process of data standardisation and gap filling to ensure that the amalgamated and comparative results really do tell the story they appear to.

Acquired by MarketResearch.com in 2007, the business information service Profound was relaunched in December 2008 with a continuing emphasis on access to third party market research. Putting it through its paces in an in-depth product review, Diana Nutting likes its clear pricing and interactive training, but is concerned that the data can't be exported to Excel or Word for further analysis and that there's no pay-as-you-go option. Overall, though, she's very impressed - especially with the ability to find those nuggets of data in a chart, graph or report section in specialist reports that one doesn't subscribe to.

Finally, three syndicated loan databases feature in a comparative review from Perrin Kerevala covering ReutersLPC's LoanConnector, Thomson Reuters' ThomsonONE and Dealogic's Loan Analytics. All well established, the three have been providing financial institutions with technical deal infrastructure solutions and financial information for decades. But as the analysis shows, their performance does vary significantly, in factors such as search and reporting options and qualitative commentary; for these products, value for money will depend on your particular need.

Jinfo Jobs in the FreePint Newsletter are supported through our partnership with Quantum², an innovative skills development programme offered by Dialog. Learn more at <http://quantum.dialog.com/>.

Recently published:

Directions and maps: <http://www.freepint.com/contact.htm>