Financial Services Consulting

IHS Financial Services Consulting provides a wide range of advisory services for corporate and public finance professionals. Whether you need to allocate capital reserves according to predicted economic performance, want to convince constituents of proposed capital project benefits, or desire to rank investments, we will work with you to design a complete solution. IHS consultants harness our vast economic and financial databases, sophisticated forecasting models, and deep industry expertise to assist you with demand and scenario planning, economic impact analyses, decision analytics and the consumer credit market. Through our sister company, IHS CERA, we offer you targeted solutions for prioritizing and making significant energy investments

Our consulting process is a highly collaborative one. IHS experts engage your strategic planning, capital markets, corporate development, marketing and operational leadership teams to understand your current processes and identify your requirements. We create long-term, successful and self-reliant strategies within an agreed-upon time frame and under a set-fee arrangement. To ensure that our clients use our services to the fullest extent, we remain engaged with you long after we have completed our deliverables.

You gain support for your strategic objectives in six key areas:

• Demand planning and economic scenario analysis
• Economic impact analysis
• Decision analytics
• Energy resource assessment
• Strategic due diligence
• Consumer credit analysis

IHS Financial Services Consulting enables you to:

• Maximize revenues and reduce operating costs through improved capital allocation
• Acquire reliable third-party intelligence from the most consistently accurate economic forecasting firm to influence key stakeholders
• Capitalize on existing in-house data to make more informed investment decisions and improve operational efficiency
• Prioritize and rank diverse investment opportunities and licensing round blocks
• Understand the real trade-offs among alternatives when making a major energy investment and align key stakeholders on chosen strategy

Demand Planning & Economic Scenario Analysis — Evaluate trends in key market segments, analyze forces of change and identify risk and success factors to enable clients to maximize return on assets

• Fact-based, forward-looking demand-planning processes
• Credible and accurate forecasts for specific product lines or business units
• Optimal targets for sales force quotas and territories
• Objective future production and sales budgets
• Market segmentation and penetration strategies
• Consistent input for portfolio stress testing as part of regulatory compliance
• Comprehensive draconian scenarios that accommodate capital adequacy planning

See Case Study #1

Economic Impact Analysis — Comprehensive assessments designed to inform key stakeholders on how changes to business operating climates, policy environments, or capital project priorities impact jobs and economic activity

• Analysis of the impact of economic change on your operating environment
• Communication of your quantifiable contribution to local, state and national economies
• Cost-benefit analyses for public sector and trade associations of policy changes, fiscal spending decisions or proposed capital projects
• Key input for economic development plans
• Comprehensive growth plans for state and regional tourism
• Independent assessments to inform and support negotiations with public officials

See Case Study #2

Decision Analytics — Transforming your proprietary data into actionable intelligence to help you execute strategies, make more informed investment decisions and improve operational efficiencies

• Prospective insights and business simulation
• Risk analysis, measurement, and management
• Performance measurement and improvement
• Transparency and transferability
• Policy analysis
• Model validation and verification
• Model and economic benchmarking
• Data and text mining
• Econometric and statistical analysis
• Fraud detection
• Model design development
• Pricing strategy

See Case Study #3

Energy Resource Assessment— Quick prioritization of investment opportunities at a basin or play level by considering the full range of value drivers, including subsurface resource potential and possible aboveground risks

• Rapid prioritization of investment opportunities (exploration, asset acquisitions, farm-ins) at a basin or play fairway level
• Rigorous analysis of technical, fiscal, commercial, regulatory and security factors to develop prioritization list
• Regularly updated information in response to rapid changes in the E&P environment, to test prioritization and to respond quickly to opportunities
• Delivery of information with rich, clear insight to facilitate organizational buy-in

See Case Study #4

Strategic Due Diligence— Make high-quality decisions through crafting value-creating alternatives and understanding the impact of risks

• Business intelligence: macroeconomic impact, regional, market analysis, political and regulatory
• Commercial evaluation: competitors, partners, suppliers and customers
• Planning: Scenarios, alternatives and post-acquisition plans
• Valuation: market-based (historical transactions, equity comparables) and asset-based (robust, bottom-up asset models)

See Case Study #5

Consumer Credit — Assembling 22 individual country reports that provide competitive intelligence, detailed market sizing and quantitative forecasts for the local consumer finance business in select European countries

Contact us for an exploratory meeting.

Case Study #1: Strategic Segmentation of Market Growth Forecasts

Challenge: A machinery components firm needed a more rigorous estimate of its global market size--segmented by product department and world regions--for planning and investor relations purposes.

Solution: IHS Consulting developed a US market-size model based on product category usage rates by end-market. We then extended the model globally using our World Industry database.

Results: Our client gained critical knowledge of and a consistent measure for its market size outside of the United States, enabling it to refine strategies across the corporation and tell a more compelling story to investors. See Demand Planning

Case Study #2: Quantifying a Company's Impact on the Economy

Challenge: The world's largest general merchandise and food retailer needed to educate various stakeholders about the company's impact on the US economy.

Solution: IHS Consulting developed a series of fact-based model simulations that depicted how the US economy would have performed had the retailer not existed.

Results: The model allowed our client to demonstrate that over a 24-year period, expansion of its presence in the US economy has resulted in a cumulative 2.9% decrease in consumer prices, which translated into a savings of $980 for every person—and $2,600 per household—during 2008. The client incorporated the study's findings into a national advertising campaign that helped to solidify its value message to stakeholders. See Economic Impact Analysis

Case Study #3: Efficiency Gains and Savings of $60 Million per Year

Challenge: In light of decreased funding, the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Division of Continuing Disability Review Support needed an improved process for reviewing its growing caseload.

Solution: IHS Consulting developed multiple tools to help the client streamline its caseload, foremost a customized model for identifying individuals unlikely to recover and, therefore, in need of review.

Results: The SSA's Division of Continuing Disability Review Support saved $60 million dollars per year in spending on unnecessary case reviews. See Decision Analytics

Case Study #4: Extracting the Highest Potential

Challenge: An international shale gas client needed to identify global shale gas opportunities.

Solution: IHS Consulting performed a bottom-up analysis of primary shale gas plays, including extraction data, location, key players and ranking.

Results: This client expanded its shale gas business significantly by engaging key players and aggressively marketing its drilling, completion, and development capabilities in areas of high shale gas activity.See Energy Resource Assessment

Case Study #5: Southeast Asia Deepwater Gas Monetization Strategy

Challenge: A company embarking on a plan to develop multiple deepwater gas discoveries needed to evaluate alternative strategies for monetizing the gas via onshore LNG facilities.

Solution: IHS Consulting assessed alternative development strategies, recommending high-grading the portfolio and pursuing an operate-by-others and partnering strategy to achieve maximum shareholder value creation and investment efficiency.

Results: The company shifted its focus to two large-scale, low-risk discoveries and agreed to be purchased by a larger, better positioned, major international oil company. See Strategic Due Diligence