Clients: Estates Gazette Interactive (EGi): Case Study

Client:

• Estates Gazette Interactive, an online subscription service provided to property professionals by the Estates Gazette Group. The service delivers commercial property news, research and information to more than 19,000 subscribers.

Challenge:

• Estates Gazette Group sought to extend their leadership in providing information to the commercial property market by positioning EGi as the industry hub for financial information on the UK commercial real estate market. One of the key approaches used to achieve this was the provision of financial market data.
• A core requirement was regularly updated information reflecting the overall financial market situation. The data to support this objective was supplied by AXL.

Market overview:

• The commercial property market relies on the rapid delivery of key information in support of crucial decisions. News, research and comment are the basis of these decisions and electronic media have become the de facto standard for information exchange.
• For EGi to be the hub of the industry, it needed to deliver timely information to support new business opportunities as well as being the resource for all forms of commercial property advice.

Solution:

• AXL provided a range of financial market data to provide an all-round view of company performance in the commercial property sector. This included a full listing of the stocks in this sector with individual performance breakdowns and interactive charting for each. The 15-minutes delayed data is delivered to EGi in XML format and a specially developed interface allows that data to be displayed seamlessly in the site's design.
• This sector-specific market data is supported by a listing of the FTSE 100 that allows the commercial property market to be placed in the context of the top performing companies on the London Stock Exchange. In addition, EGi users are also able to manage their share portfolios on the site and view in one convenient place the value of their holdings.

Key Technologies:

• AXL takes market information from the London Stock Exchange's LMIL (London Market Information Link) and processes it using market-leading proprietary feed handlers developed by AXL and evolved over the company's 10 years of operation. These feed handlers allow the onward delivery of data in multiple formats.
• EGi uses AXL's XML datafeed to process and display data on the site. The data is delivered with little or no perceptible lag when a user requests it, therefore ensuring that they always receive the most up-to-date view of market conditions.

Key Activities:

• In addition to development services required to build the datafeed according to EGi's precise requirements, project management and consultancy skills were also provided. These ensured that not only were the requirements comprehensively analysed but that the project was also delivered efficiently and continues to run effectively.
• The datafeed is fully supported by AXL to ensure availability and performance are maintained at optimum levels.