Our clients define an investment "question", whose answer is critical to influencing a major investment decision. Our analysts develop from scratch the names of relevant managers within a number of target companies, competitive firms, end-user communities or distributors for potential interviewing. These managers are not on a Verbatim "panel", are not paid by Verbatim, and are rarely interviewed. They have no strings attached to answers they provide. At the end of the project, those contact names belong to the client, and are not syndicated or provided to other clients as part of a "panel". Once the names have been identified, Verbatim Analysts conduct numerous interviews which, although generally open-ended, follow a calling guide that is designed to comprehensively answer the investment "question". At the end of the program, Verbatim will analyze the data, generate an Investigation Summary, and provide interview summaries to the client with names and contact information of all interviewees. In many cases, the interviewees have agreed to follow-on discussions with Verbatim's client. more info >

Monthly Industry Reports

Verbatim's monthly industry reports provide access to high-impact fundamental research previously available only to custom clients. Published monthly, industry reports cover 3 - 5 individuals stocks and include an industry overview. Each report is a compelling and objective variable for your investment decision, featuring ground-level intelligence untainted by CEO comments, financial models or macro market analysis. Each report synthesizes dozens of interviews conducted with mid-level managers, channel partners and competitors. Analysis is presented at the branch, district and corporate level, and includes Verbatim's projections for corporate sales, along with supporting data points such as:

• Comp trends for the month and quarter
• Performance versus plan
• Category movers and laggards
• Promotional environment versus past month/year
• Competitive pressures
• Trends unnoticed and ignored by other research providers

Profiling

When a Fund Manager needs to analyze a large target market which has large information gaps, Verbatim will interview key individuals in the supply chain: distributors, resellers, and corporate buyers. This type of profiling enables Fund Managers to closely monitor industries and exploit previously unknown areas of opportunity.

Market Tracking

Some clients are interested in staying abreast of pricing, market share, or distribution channel trends for an industry or set of companies. Verbatim conducts ongoing monthly and quarterly analyses of industry trends for client Analysts and Fund Managers. Multiple interviews are held with Vice Presidents, Directors and Managers at each of several companies. Further trend validation comes through interviews of competitors and customers, thereby uncovering unexpected changes in market dynamics in time to buy or sell. For the final degree of comfort, Verbatim sets up several follow-on interviews that the Fund Manager conducts on his own.

Company Performance Forecasting

Verbatim will forecast key performance metrics of specified companies such as changes in same store sales in the retail industry, departure from earning estimates in the financial services industry, and other corporate indicators that influence stock price changes. Although secondary research is used to some extent, the bulk of Verbatim’s analysis comes from volume interviewing of industry participants.