Interview

Meeting with Sabine Ratoni, head of the investigation and expertise division at Ellisphere

Sabine Ratoni

Investigations: a profession that has changed over time

Initially, the surveyor's job was central to the information gathering process. These teams were responsible for contacting companies to gather information and feed the databases. Originally, the human being was the hub of the information supply to the databases.

The investigators respond to customer requests on subjects as diverse as the lack of information of a recently created company, late payments, lack of social accounts, the state of the order book, the forecasts of landing of the sales turnover, a development of the activity...

 

The advent of new technologies

Over time, new technologies have become more and more important. This has had a significant impact on the profession of investigator. For 25 years, the Internet has revolutionized the way of accessing information. Investigators have grown up with these evolutions which have become indispensable today.

The tools for collecting and monitoring information on the Internet now make it possible to get to know the company and its business model better before entering into a relationship and to target the interview on the "real questions". This exchange allows us to have and provide the most up-to-date data possible on the economic players.

 

Financial information: increasingly regulated data

Access to information has never been so accessible. Open-data, social networks and the internet in a global sense have allowed simple and direct access to information. However, financial information is more and more regulated and less and less available.

The Macron law (balance sheets published in confidence), the right to be forgotten for managers who have experienced failures, and lien registrations of less than €200k are all measures that have forced information providers to adapt their capture techniques.

 

A reluctance to provide information

Moreover, the reluctance to provide information on the part of economic actors is still present. Today, perhaps more than yesterday, companies are increasingly solicited. This is also a challenge that teams must face.

Although most surveys are conducted by telephone, with companies and their decision-makers (managers, accountants, financial directors, etc.), companies are no longer always accessible by telephone.

Chatbots, online forms and even social networks have, for some companies, become the only point of contact. These new uses are pushing researchers to evolve their approaches to retrieve reliable information.

 

Towards the automation of the investigation business?

A smaller scope of action...

Technological developments have enabled financial information providers to automate the information retrieval process. The amount of information available has become overwhelming.

The spectrum of action of the investigators is however less wide than in the past. However, their role is still central to the quality of the information collected. We have moved from mass collection to customized processing to ensure reliable and up-to-date data.

 

... but which tends towards more added value

In concrete terms, the people we deal with remain the same: the companies. If the volume has been impacted by these changes, the business itself has not changed.

The time saved by the retrieval and processing of information by the machine has allowed interviewers to focus on higher value-added tasks. The work of the interviewer allows to confirm or deny information: figures, prospects, purchase, transfer...

Today, the teams respond to specific customer requests. This customized work allows them to enrich the database with reliable and verified information. The profession is therefore specializing in targeted information research. The objective: to provide a quick and precise answer about a company and thus meet the customer's needs.

 

An essential complementarity between man and machine

Human expertise remains essential to process and collect enriched information. The teams exchange directly with the companies in order to understand their stakes and to assess their economic and financial situation as accurately as possible.

The investigator provides a qualitative analysis of the information collected and gives a detailed opinion on the companies studied. These analyses are also based on an essential base of information from public sources (BODACC, INSEE, IMR...).

Surveys are a successful mix of this information integrated daily in the database and information collected from companies. This is the right balance that needs to be maintained between technology and human expertise.

At the same time, the interviewer relies on new technologies (notably the 3rd generation score) to enrich and complete his opinion in order to provide our clients with a global vision of the targeted company.

 

What future for surveys?

As technology continues to evolve, regulation is becoming an increasingly important part of the discussion around data today.

More and more, we are moving towards a hyperspecialization of the investigator's profession. This evolution goes hand in hand with the technological evolutions that have simplified the collection of information.

The role of the human being will always be central in the qualification of information. Indeed, the latter tends to concentrate on tasks with high added value to enrich the database in a qualitative way and to ensure the durability of the commercial relations of our customers.

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