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David Zweifler
Director of
Marketing,
North America
Linedata Services |
Tell us a little about Linedata Services
Linedata Services is a financial sector
technology company specializing in Asset
Management, Leasing & Credit Finance and
Insurance & Savings. Linedata Services offers
comprehensive IT solutions, drawing on the
expertise of its three complementary areas
of expertise: packaged software solutions,
systems integration and application service
provider (ASP).
Cognito works with the Asset Management
arm of Linedata Services, a space in which
we are the only full front- to back-office
solution for the buy-side available via ASP
(application service provider).
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Can you explain the relationship
between Cognito and Linedata Services?
Cognito is the frontline for managing our
relationships with the media. Linedata
Services first hired Cognito in May 2006 to
coordinate retained PR within our Asset
Management space in the UK, US and parts
of Europe. With three complex product sets
this was no easy task but Cognito has been
a good fit for Linedata Services – Cognito
has a really good depth of knowledge in our
verticals and results have been continuously
good with messages consistent.
Over the last year the relationship has
changed and no longer is it one way
communication from our firm to Cognito. I
am now able to coordinate the
communications across the three divisions
in a way that hadn’t been done before and
procedurally we are now better about getting
spokespeople, better about identifying proactive
opportunities internally and better
about prioritizing. As a result, our relationship
with Cognito has become much smarter -
we are able to sit down and identify
opportunities in the press together. Cognito
comes to us with market intelligence allowing
us to refine our messages. The last six months
has been more about listening to the market – Cognito has added a lot of value here.
What do you believe is the value
of retained PR?
PR is a cornerstone of our marketing efforts
and is one of our most important tactics. I am
a huge fan of PR, not just because I came from
that background but I believe it is much easier
to track ROI (return on investment). We run
a fairly lean operation here but the return on
our public relations investment is high. We
don’t just rely on people to read our press
but we also ensure it is distributed – this is
the output of our PR. In my view ROI is easy
to track and the value of retained PR for us is
tremendous.
What does the future hold?
The biggest industry trend for us is
convergence and Linedata Services was
farsighted in building a front- to back-office
solution that anticipated it. For example, five
years ago it would have seemed outrageous
for the buy-side to want interday integration
between fund accounting, risk, and trading
solutions, whereas this is a common
occurrence today. We are uniquely positioned
to continue to bring together all the different
areas in an intuitive way.
Just as our customers are converging, our
marketing needs are converging as well. Right
now we are only using Cognito for PR, despite
the fact that they are a full-service agency. In
the future I see Cognito providing Linedata
Services with additional services and working
very closely with our advertising agency to
have unified communications that work
across multi-channels.
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