Sell-Side Technology Awards 2017: Best Sell-Side Technology Provider of the Year—IHS Markit

Some on the buy side were concerned that those two highly successful and sought-after brands would be damaged in the move to the Markit stable, while more recently, others wondered what exactly IHS had envisioned when it merged with Markit just over a year ago, given that IHS’ focus had always been the energy and automotive sectors. But those misgivings turned out to be unfounded. Mergers and acquisitions are an occupational hazard in all industries and while they might not necessarily be enjoyed, they do need to be endured from time to time. And let’s face it, the folks at IHS Markit know a thing or two about M&A activity.    

Markit, prior to its merger with IHS, was, by any measure, a phenomenally successful data, information and technology firm. And, given its success in this year’s Sell-Side Technology Awards by winning the best sell-side data management product and best sell-side newcomer (vendor or product) categories, only a fool would bet against the new entity changing the ingredients underpinning the strategy that has made it by far and away the most successful firm across all of WatersTechnology’s awards programs. 

This year’s success comes by way of the firm’s flagship Markit EDM (Enterprise Data Management) platform, which continues to evolve and sweep all before it in what has become one of the most keenly contested of all categories, while in the newcomer category, the firm’s FRTB Solution Suite was the judges’ obvious choice, given the industry’s recent fixation with all things relating to the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB), a revised market risk framework introduced by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, set to come into force in 18 months’ time. And so, with the firm’s continued stranglehold over the data management category—a market that it entered once it had established its hegemony in its traditional buy-side stronghold—and its ability to identify market trends and respond to demands by way of its FRTB Suite, the Waters journalists were unanimous in their decision that the final category of the Sell-Side Technology Awards 2017 should go IHS Markit, following up its success in this category three years ago. 

Past winners of this category include SunGard, now FIS, (2013), Markit (2014), Bloomberg (2015) and SmartStream (2016).