What We’ve Heard and What We’ve Been Building

What We Have Learned

All our clients share a common goal; they need accurate, independent, and reliable insights into SMEs’ credit risk. However, no two clients are alike.

After almost four years of serving clients across four continents, we have gathered an invaluable amount of high-quality feedback from our clients; including their challenges, their ambitions and how we can help them compete in a dynamic market. In the first years, that feedback came from initial prospects as they turned into early adopters. Over the last few years, and thousands of virtual meetings, the breadth and pace of feedback accelerated. In the last six months, we were delighted to get back to in-real-life meetings, travelling and networking. The richness of feedback in face-to-face conversations is not yet matched by any video conference system we’ve seen.

Over time, we have heard some consistent themes that span diverse geographies and market segments. Across the SME credit risk space, the need for easier to use, faster, more flexible tools which provide deeper, more reliable insight and decision-making support has never been greater.

As we enter the second quarter, we wanted to share some of the specific feedback we have heard and, without giving away too much, give you a glimpse into some exciting product announcements that are just around the corner:

Ease of Use and Speed Matters

• Compelling Design: A quick, compelling visual snapshot of key information and insights is the best way to combat information overload without losing sight of what is important.
  Richness of data and insight is valuable, but it must be easy to make sense of.
• Easy Inputs, Flexible Outputs: There is no single preference for inputting or extracting data from our platform. Some clients prefer manual uploads, others use the company ID but would prefer to search by company name. Some prefer batch uploads and outputs; others prefer PDFs and a growing number rely on APIs. Ease of use and flexibility is essential.
• Fast API response: Business leaders expect the same speed in their professional digital lives that they enjoy in their personal lives.
• Show me the data: While some clients only need a single risk score, many want the ability to easily interrogate and sensitise “the black box” to understand the trends that drive a score.

Reliable Insight and Decision-Making Support 

• Mind the Gaps: Not all SMEs provide the same publicly available richness of data and information. It is important to know when an analysis has relied on complete, partial, or limited amounts of information.
• Trust but Verify: When they register their business, directors designate the sector they operate in. This may change over time. Occasionally, this freedom to select business sector without a second party verification is abused. However, advances in machine learning can assess likely business activity based on a business’s website.
• ESG: While financial trends will always be a fundamental component of credit assessments, emerging risks must also be considered. Susceptibility to physical and transition risks can offer critical insight into a business’s risk profile.
• People matter: Enhanced detail around directors, senior management and shareholders including appointment date, position and PEP flags provide valuable insight into the people responsible for a business.

Watch This Space!

These are a few of the things we have heard from our clients over the years, and we have acted on the feedback. In the coming weeks we are looking forward to sharing some exciting updates to our platform and offering; including a completely new interface with new features, new capabilities, and new ways we can help our clients compete and win in the SME credit space – the best is yet to come!