Tom Glocer: Building on a year of achievement

The Thomson Reuters Board, meeting in London last week, heard detailed updates on technology initiatives, talent programmes and acquisition strategy. The chief executive said disclosure rules kept him from sharing details on the last item, but on the other two subjects he did not need to be so guarded.

“Our approach to technology seeks to balance investment in innovation on the one hand with scale-efficiency projects on the other, both within and across our divisions,” Glocer said in a message circulated to the group’s 55,000 employees. “This balance enables us both to grow revenues through new and improved products and to improve customer service and time-to-market while reducing costs through greater leverage of technology platforms. Getting this balance right is not easy and requires constant attention, but it is one of the most important elements of our success. We must stay agile and ‘light on our technology feet’ (as I describe it to my fellow directors), while still placing large bets on technology infrastructures such as data storage and distribution which give us a competitive advantage.”

The Board was also presented with a detailed review of the group’s various talent programmes, “which are intended to ensure that we have a robust pipeline of future leaders and the right development opportunities in place to motivate and stretch them”, Glocer said.

He said he was proud of the company’s many investments in talent. “Next month, for example, we'll be launching a Career Development Month in the Americas, a UKI diversity week and other people initiatives around the globe. Most of what the company spends, we spend quite rightly on people and technology.”

London was also the setting for the launch of Thomson Reuters Eikon, “which targets the new generation of financial professionals who are distinguished by their affinity for technology, greater demand for real-time information and an outlook that transcends social, geographic or language barriers”. It offers these professionals a single place to turn for comprehensive, critical content, Glocer said. “Three years in the making, Eikon is truly a ‘new tool for a new era’.”

He called Eikon “a real game-changer” and congratulated Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive, and “the entire Markets team for delivering one hot platform”. Early sales results confirm that the company has another winner on its hands.

In addition to Eikon and WestlawNext, which sets the standard for what the new generation of legal professionals need to do their jobs, Thomson Reuters also released Reuters Insider, an interactive on-demand video platform, and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network, in 2010. A global tax workstation called  ONESOURCE and Advantage Suite 5.0 for healthcare are scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter. “I am very proud that we continued to invest through the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-2009, and we are now set to reap the rewards of this strategy,” Glocer said.

“It is important that we prove to our shareholders, other stakeholders, and especially to ourselves, that we can reap these rewards. We have had the rare permission over the past two years to keep investing in the projects that we believe in, but now we must show that we can turn this confidence into revenue and profit growth. 

“This balance between investment and return, over the short and the long term, is another balance we must get right. It is with this in mind that we have begun to prepare the 2011 budget.

“In the coming quarter there's much to be done to realize the full potential of this year of achievement and prepare for 2011. Building on the strongest roster of products we have ever had, I have no doubt we will succeed.” ■