Infotrieve Company Brief


Infotrieve Company Brief










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Company Brief
Infotrieve

by Michael Gariffo

Copyright 2012, Faulkner Information Services. All Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00021153

Publication Date: 1202

Report Type: VENDOR

Preview

Infotrieve is a provider of business service
solutions and consultation for information centers. It offers services such as
content licensing, document delivery, copyright compliance, usage analysis,
reprinting, and collection management. The company’s clients include libraries,
information professionals, marketers, product managers, and more than half of
the Fortune 500.

Report Contents:

Fast Facts

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Name: Infotrieve
Headquarters
20 Westport Road, Suite 105
Wilton, CT 06897
Phone:(203) 423-2130
Web: http://www.infotrieve.com/
Type of Vendor: Information Center Services
Founded: 1991
Service Areas: Global
Stock Symbol: Infotrieve is privately held.

Description

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Infotrieve is a provider of business service solutions and consultation for
information centers. It offers services such as content licensing, document
delivery, copyright compliance, reprinting, and collection
management. The company’s clients include libraries, information professionals,
marketers, product managers, and more than half of the Fortune 500. Infotrieve
also specializes in providing solutions for improving access to e-content and
providing collaboration through social networking tools. 

Infotrieve began its life in 1991 as a document delivery service located in
the US. Since then it has grown in both scope, and reach. The company now
maintains a globally available portfolio including services for librarians,
information center managers, and product and marketing managers. 

Strategy

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Infotrieve divides its products and services into four types: Content Access,
which covers the company’s solutions for quickly accessing the customer’s own
content, particularly via portable platforms such as the cloud or mobile
devices; Sharing and Collaboration, which covers products that support
interaction between employees using social networking tools; Information
Management, which was the companies first area of business, and remains its
primary source of revenue; and Marketing and Loyalty, which includes all of the
company’s products designed to share information and materials with third
parties outside of the customer’s company.

Inotrieve’s main goal is to support businesses in keeping up with the rapidly
changing needs of what it calls the "I need it now era of content
usage." This began with the company’s original information management
solutions, but has since grown to include a heavy cloud-based component and
mobile segment, particularly for users of tablet devices. The purpose of all of
these products and services is simply to give customers the ability to access
any of their data, from anywhere, at any time. 

Strengths

Infotrieve is one of the oldest global document delivery services still in
operation. The company has grown from a much smaller operation, dealing almost
exclusively in physical document delivery, to a global presence offering a wide
range of both physical, and digital delivery options. Most recently Infotrieve
also got into the mobile apps game with the release of its Mobile Library app
for the Apple iPad and other mobile devices with advanced browsers. The
application gives STM customers full access to their
libraries from the tablet device. The foresight to continually embrace the full
breadth of new technology to expand its business has allowed Infotrieve to
remain relevant in a time when many of the more traditional business support
services are being obviated by technological advancements.

Infotrieve also has also maintained a strong presence in the cloud since
before the term "cloud" had even been coined. Its secured online
storage of customers documents, as well as remotely accessible databases of
copyrighted publications put it ahead of the game when other industries began
shifting to cloud-based models for more and more of their computing needs. 

Lastly, Infotrieve has fully embraced the corporate world’s adoption of
social network as an integral part of future information sharing. While it may
seem like a fundamental idea given the ease with which social networks allow the
general public to post and share info, the adoption of social networking tools
came early and has been built upon heavily by the company.

Weaknesses

While Infotrieve has maintained its position in the document delivery
industry well, it remains a company with a relatively narrow focus. Its limited
business process outsourcing services help to diversify its portfolio somewhat.
However, the company’s primary business is derived almost entirely from its
various document delivery and management offerings. This leaves Infotrieve
vulnerable to major shifts in industry practices. New technologies such as the
rise of private clouds may soon begin to significantly reduce the global need
for third party document management. A business has no reason to pay for
Infotrieve to maintain a document library for it, if it can maintain its own
library on a private cloud, with more customizable security, and with less cost.
Although many customers would still require access to the delivery of
copyrighted materials, the loss of private document storage, practically half of
Infotrieve’s business, would be devastating. 

Private cloud installations may still be out of reach for the majority of
Infotrieve’s customers. However, the touted crown jewel of its customer base,
its "more than half of the Fortune 500," are more than capable of
transitioning to a private cloud. Not only would the company be losing some of
its largest customers, it would be losing the advertising impact of being able
to claim, among its subscribers, many of the world’s most respected
companies. 

Outlook

Although the market for its services may be in somewhat of a transitional
phase, Infotrieve has the potential to retain or improve its position. The
company has a decision to make about its future. It could expand its range
services, which would risk its stability, while also providing the possibility
for expansion and diversification. Or, it could remain focused on the document
delivery service and attempt to provide a product that offered innovative
services at an attractive price. Either way, Infotrieve must position itself as
a viable, or preferable alternative to the growing number of businesses
purchasing and installing their own private clouds, and other technologies which
provide in-house automated alternatives to many of the products and service
Infotrieve offers. 

The most important move made by Infotrieve in recent years may well be its
launch of the Mobile Library iPad and Web app. In a world where most workforces are
becoming increasingly mobile, it is paramount for the company to be able to
provide easy access to a customer’s documents from anywhere, and on all of the
most popular new devices. Infotrieve should not stop with just an iPad, or
somewhat less rich Web application. It should expand to include smartphones, other tablet platforms,
and a wider range of mobile operating systems, such as the BlackBerry OS and
Android. It is offerings such as these which would put the Infotrieve’s products
and services into the forefront of businesses’ minds when the time comes to
finds solutions for their document management and delivery needs. 

Product Lines

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Infotrieve splits its offerings into three categories: Solutions for
Librarians, Solutions for Information Center Management, and Solutions for
Product and Marketing Managers. 

Table 1.  Infotrieve Operating Systems
Product/Service

 Description

 Competitors
Solutions for Librarians Infotrieve’s Solutions for Librarians line includes
the following products:

  • Document Delivery
    • Electronic and physical delivery of documents including journal and
      magazine articles, conference papers, case studies and book chapters.
  • Library Staffing & Information Management Services
    • A staff of information center professionals with proficiencies in
      document delivery management, cataloging and collection management,
      literature search and discovery, licensing management, and taxonomy
      development.
  • Software Solutions Suite
    • Virtual Library 2.0 – Infotrieve’s base level search, discovery, and
      ordering platform.
    • Virtual Library 2.0+ – Same features as its predecessor with added
      search and discovery platforms.
    • Content SCM – A combined document delivery and rights management
      platform. 
 Biodox, Research Solutions,
Document Store, Subito.
Solutions for Information Center Management Infotrieve’s Solutions for Information Center
Management Line includes the following:

  • Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
    • Includes services such as search and discovery, collection management
      and licensing, and document sourcing and delivery
  • Document Delivery
    • Electronic and physical delivery of documents including journal and
      magazine articles, conference papers, case studies and book chapters.
  • STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) Library
    • A library management service for organizations maintaining a
      collection of more than 2,500 title-years of copyrighted literature, and
      performing more than 5,000 document delivery transactions annually.
    • STM installations are accessible via the company’s Mobile Library iPad
      application.
 Biodox, Research Solutions, Document Store, Subito.
Solutions for Product and Marketing Managers Infotrieve’s Solutions for Product and Marketing Managers Line includes the
following:

  • Reprints, ePrints & Permissions
    • Handles all of the procurement, reproduction, and delivery of reprints
      and eprints.
  • Bravo
    • A technology solution designed to aggregate the ordering of reprints
      across an entire company by pooling reprint orders and reducing
      redundancy.
  • eDetailing
    • A service designed to help businesses that commonly sell their
      products to physicians by giving users access to published scientific,
      technical, or medical information that is relevant to their product.
 Biodox, Research Solutions, Document Store, Subito.

Key Executives

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President and CEO: Kenneth J. Benvenuto

Senior Vice President: Richard H. Weaver

CTO: Fred Pandolfi

Corporate Controller: Eileen Green

Competitors

Financials

Infotrieve is a privately-owned company currently funded by venture
capital originating from Trident Capital, Boston Millennia Partners, and
Signal Equity Partners.

About the Author

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Michael Gariffo is an editor for Faulkner
Information Services. He tracks and writes about enterprise software
and the IT services sector, as well as telecommunications and data networking.

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