Unstructured data at source
Most regulatory announcements are documents, not data.
- Announcements start as Word documents, formatted by humans
- Key figures (revenue, profit, guidance) are buried in narrative text
- No standard structure means every announcement must be parsed individually
- Comparing results across companies requires manual extraction or expensive data services
- Historical data is locked in PDFs and archived web pages
Consequence: Machine analysis is expensive and error-prone. Only well-resourced players can process information at scale.
Fragmentation across platforms
Information is scattered across dozens of disconnected systems.
- RNS announcements appear on multiple sites, each with different features
- Company presentations live on IR websites, often hard to find
- Research is siloed within provider platforms
- Event content (conference Q&As, site visits) rarely gets transcribed
- Social media discussion happens separately from official channels
Consequence: Investors must manually stitch together a complete picture, often missing pieces. Time spent aggregating is time not spent analysing.
Industry data: 64% of IR teams are satisfied with their tech stack overall — but only 28% are satisfied with how their tools work together. A 36-point integration gap.[30]
Unequal access to information
The playing field between institutional and retail investors is not level.
- Institutions get direct access to management through roadshows and one-on-ones
- Commissioned research is often embargoed before public release
- Corporate access events are rarely open to individual investors
- The cost of professional terminals ($32,000/year for Bloomberg) excludes most retail participants
- Real-time data feeds cost thousands per month
Consequence: Information asymmetry persists despite regulations designed to ensure fair disclosure.
Poor visibility for companies
Companies release information into a void with limited feedback.
- No clear view of who actually reads announcements
- Engagement metrics (if they exist) are siloed within individual platforms
- Hard to know which investors are interested vs which are shareholders
- Media pickup is unpredictable and hard to track
- Questions from the market often go unanswered because companies don't know they're being asked
Consequence: Companies can't optimise their communication because they can't measure it. Good disclosure goes unrewarded.
Industry data: C-suite executives are 3× more likely to see retail engagement as a priority (33% vs 10%) — but only 9% of IR teams cite it as a challenge.[30]
High cost of insight
Quality interpretation is expensive to produce and expensive to consume.
- A Bloomberg terminal costs ~$32,000 per year
- Commissioned research costs companies £20,000-50,000 per report
- MiFID II unbundling reduced broker research coverage dramatically
- Many AIM stocks now have zero analyst coverage
- DIY analysis requires significant time investment to be meaningful
Consequence: An information gap exists for smaller companies: too small for institutional interest, too obscure for media coverage.
Temporal fragmentation
Information decays and gets lost over time.
- Historical announcements are hard to search and compare
- Management commentary from years ago is effectively lost
- Guidance changes over time are difficult to track systematically
- Old investor presentations disappear from company websites
- Context that was obvious at the time becomes obscure later
Consequence: Institutional memory is weak. Patterns that would be obvious with good data remain hidden.