The existing process at financial institutions for gathering prospect information involves a team of expensive specialists (known as Prospectors) who are responsible for networking and approaching potential clients. Their identification of individuals who have enough interest to warrant further conversation often requires significant online research to constantly monitor and track targeted companies. Bitvore's AI attacks this very problem.
Traditional ways of gathering information online may include:
- Setting up a content detection notification service, such as Google Alerts to be notified via email when new results (web pages, press articles, blog posts, etc.) are found that match user specified search terms
- Frequently visiting targeted company websites looking for anything new
- Searching for Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings or liens for insight on which companies may be interested in lending opportunities
- Visiting Industrial Development Agency (IDA) websites to read meeting minutes for clues on economic opportunities in particular locations
- Constantly surveying traditional media and publications via manual means, just to be sure nothing is missed.
Aside from the time-consuming nature of searching the internet for nuggets of useful business related information, the other problem with this approach is Prospectors have to weed through a lot of junk to find a useful gem. In our context, we define junk as information that is duplicate, superfluous or irrelevant. Here are two examples of content we would consider junk:
- Opinion pieces with commentary about a company from a non credible source (i.e. blog posts)
- Non-business related information that mentions a company (i.e. an employee picnic)
The internet is a big place where even the best Prospectors are unable to find, read, and understand all of the available information related to their topic. Luckily, there is an alternative to manually doing the research: artificial intelligence.
AI, the Prospector Assistant
Utilizing AI to monitor and analyze hundreds of thousands of articles a day to narrow down to only what is relevant considerably enhances the Prospectors’ ability to do their job. For example, instead of spending 10 hours a week of more searching the internet, a Prospector can now spend just 10 minutes a day researching business related material events that are tailored to their specified targets, so they can identify the best opportunities faster. The recovered manpower hours allow the Prospector more face-to- face, human connection time necessary to bring in new customers. In addition, knowing about all the recent material business events of a company you’d like to work with provides a talking point or conversation starter that doesn’t feel like an awkward cold call. This is the focus of Bitvore's business and whether a customer wishes to consume our continuously updated precision datasets through an API for integration to their existing tools/systems or use our research UIs, they'll be miles ahead of the competition, who will be trying to identify material business events manually.
