Thomson Reuters has challenges

Stanley Reed of BusinessWeek writes in the latest issue about the challenges facing the newly merged Thomson Reuters.

Reed writes, “Glocer has made major strides in putting the two organizations together, but he may come under pressure to speed things up because of the foundering financial industry. Glocer’s mandate is to take the Thomson unit—which gets more than 80% of its revenues from North America—to Asia, the Middle East, and beyond to serve developing countries that are adopting more rigorous legal systems, building financial services, and pouring money into health and science. Glocer is ‘the right athlete for the event we are now in,” says Beattie, who also serves as a deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters.

“The real event will be linking the two companies’ oceans of information in ways that better serve customers. One idea: use Reuters legal journalists to add news to the technical offerings of Thomson’s market-leading legal research business, Westlaw. Another: combine Reuters data on Islamic bonds with Thomson’s expertise on Sharia law to sew up the fast-growing Islamic finance market. Glocer thinks Thomson can piggyback on Reuters’ sales force, which is strong in the red-hot Gulf region, to help put Thomson on the map there.

Thomson also brings top-notch technology to the ­equation. And it’s easy to see at the company’s sprawling complex in the Minneapolis suburb of Eagan. Inside the low-slung, 1.2 million-square-foot building, some 6,800 people, including 1,200 lawyers, spend their days reading legal cases and weaving in links to related material. A Texas Supreme Court decision on an asbestos dispute, for instance, not only links to case summaries and briefs but also supplies an illustrated article on lung disease, a list of medical experts, and their track records in producing judgments. There’s even a tool for lawyers to use in rating the creditworthiness of potential clients, a feature added at the request of law firms.