This centralized purchasing agency supports multiple federal government departments by ensuring that smooth procurement practices are in place to provide ongoing access to needed supplies and services. The agency works directly with these different departments to identify any potential supply chain disruptions that may be on the horizon to develop appropriate strategies for filling the gaps. An economic monitoring team within the agency tracks company and country activities to detect any geopolitical and social issues that could impact the flow of goods and services.
Members of the economic monitoring team had flagged several issues that needed to be closely tracked, including:
— National security: Given global political unrest and the threats of terrorism, cybersecurity and more.
— Social unrest: With growing income disparity in countries around the world fueling strikes and riots.
— Climate change: As concerns continue to rise about the economic and social impacts of high greenhouse gas emitting businesses.
— Infrastructure: Given the global need for investments in airports, seaports and other transportation networks to support efficient trade flows.
The head of the team wanted to expand the information sources being used to stay on top of both breaking developments and long-term strategic issues given the complicated set of activities that needed to be tracked.
Pain Points
Organizations require access to more information than ever before as markets continue to become interconnected and a host of macroeconomic challenges cause ripples throughout the world. The head of the economic monitoring team felt that credit ratings could provide an important lens for the procurement agency to assess and monitor the financial strength of its supply partners. He was interested in finding a well-recognized data provider that could offer:
— High-quality global credit ratings coverage at the issuer and issue level.
— In-depth research outlining the rationale behind a rating, as well as timely and topical commentaries affecting credit markets globally.
— Robust workflow tools to easily zero in on areas of interest and be alerted to relevant rating actions as they occurred.
He knew that S&P Global Market Intelligence ("Market Intelligence") provided access to credit ratings by S&P Global Ratings, an organization that is considered to be the largest of the big three credit rating agencies, and reached out to learn more.
The Solution
Specialists from Market Intelligence described RatingsDirect®, the official source for S&P Global Ratings credit ratings and research. RatingsDirect combines extensive credit ratings intelligence with comprehensive market data, credit risk indicators and dynamic visualization tools, all on a single platform. This would provide the economic monitoring team with:
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Deep insight into entities and securities rated by S&P Global Ratings |
S&P Global Ratings is synonymous with quality credit ratings, deep analytical expertise and insightful forward-looking opinions. Coverage includes over 9,000 issuers and 83,000 securities across the globe with global, national and regional scale credit ratings on the issuer and issue level. |
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Unrivalled credit ratings research |
With over a century of rating experience, research and proven methodologies, S&P Global Ratings’ analysts worldwide provide independent and objective credit opinions with local perspective within a global context. Users can leverage top stories and the latest sector highlights tailored to specific risk management needs. |
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Access to credit-adjusted financials |
Analyst-adjusted financial statements are available for 960+ global banks, 2,700+ corporates and 11,300 U.S. municipals. This enables users to improve the clarity, consistency and comparability of credit risk analysis with pre- and post-adjusted financial statement data. |
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Important sustainability intelligence |
S&P Global Ratings' sustainability research, insight and analysis help users gain a better understanding of companies’ strategy, purpose and management quality. Users can apply a sustainability lens to critical business decisions. |
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A robust desktop platform to monitor developments |
With an AI-powered integrated search function, users can quickly locate the information needed to research an issuer or topic of interest. There is also a clean and simple layout for the desktop platform, which combines alerts and other tech-forward productivity tools, unrivaled market insights and 24/7 customer support. In addition to desktop access, credit ratings and research are available via a data feed, cloud-based solution and an API. |
Key Benefits
Members of the economic monitoring team were pleased with the high-quality credit ratings coverage of RatingsDirect and the productivity-enhancing tools that would enable them to easily stay on top of global developments critical for supply chain management. They subscribed to RatingsDirect for use across the federal government and are now able to:
— Uncover an issuer’s credit story with its rating history, outlook and potential drivers for upgrades/downgrades.
— Understand the influence of sustainability factors on a credit rating.
— Differentiate between peers with the same credit rating by reviewing the underlying scores and factors behind the final credit rating, covering banks, insurance companies, corporations and sovereigns.
— Create customized push alerts for critical credit ratings changes to monitor counterparty exposures.
— Quickly visualize the ratings distribution of issuers and use filters to obtain a tailored view by sector, location, ratings type and more.— Leverage pre-built screens to quickly search and spot ratings changes.