but then again, as the revenues don’t appear to be classed as recurring (ie ARR) then perhaps warrants the discount. anyone else have a view?
Data and insights is mostly driven by what the market research industry calls "panel". In essence, PPL provide people to complete surveys and paying their incentives, manage the invitations etc.. Most of the revenue comes from market research companies. Most market research companies have a mix of tracking jobs ("trackers" - the same survey asked every month / quarter / year, looking for changes), and one off projects, most volume is one off. Trackers don't generally change panel suppliers unless there is a problem, as this can impact the survey data. For one off jobs, even though the revenue is not strictly recurring, most companies have an approved supplier list (or an informal variant of this for smaller companies). Mostly people in research companies get 2-3 quotes from this list and take the cheapest that can adequately do the job. Panel costs to a research company are generally about 10-20% of a project revenue, so there is some scope to pay more if there is a belief they will do the job better, or with whom they have a good relationship, but panel, within a quality band, is almost a commodity. So, being on the preferred supplier list, even if not technically "recurring revenue", has some stickiness and value. In ANZ, there are only a handful of players, so it behaves as an oligopoly with reasonable margins possible. In bigger markets (e.g. EU, US), there are a lot more competitors, so it is harder to maintain margin. Parts of Asia are still a bit "wild west" in terms of quality, so brand and being a multinational helps. Pureprofile is tier 1 quality of panel, which is good because a research company (or a reputable one) wont risk delivering bad data and losing a client for the sake of a couple of grand savings in panel fees.
Also note that in the back end, all the panel companies use each other to "top up". e.g. if they can only fill 1,500 surveys from a project that requires 2,000, they use their competitors to get the last 500. Due to their larger panel and partnerships, I think Pureprofile is a net beneficiary from this behind the scenes cooperation in ANZ, potentially a net loser in parts of the world where they don't have partnerships, however there are some really good partnerships PPL have developed, so I am not really sure of the net balance here. Partnership panels would generate a margin between an "owned" panel and a "top up". Building a panel is an investment (ballpark 100k people * $10 cost per acquisition = $1 million, plus $200k a year or so to maintain size), so you need some customers to support this. Partnerships allow you to deliver on big jobs without this up front investment, which can be made when the revenue in the market warrants it. So their strategy is good here.
Platform is much stickier. It becomes part of your process, and moving to a competitor becomes a lot of work and cost (a bit like changing payroll software, or BI tools), so this is pretty recurring (even if contracts expire, people would need a compelling reason to change).
So, all in all, I would say it is closer to recurring, but with more risk of being undercut by established competitors. Sorry for rambling a bit.
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