Paul Boynton Podcast Transcript
Paul Boynton joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Paul Boynton. Paul Boynton is co-founder and chief operating officer of Company Search Incorporated, aka CSI, a next generation platform for business intelligence and business analytics. Paul’s expertise as a developer, implementer, and provider of information emerged from decades of utilizing data driven decisions, servicing industry leaders, multinationals, and subject matter experts in the corporate insurance space.
Driving programs for operational and risk management results are career hallmarks, facilitating emerging market sustainability and growth for the likes of Dell, McDonald’s, Walmart, and leaders in the commodities and chemicals industries. A testament to a career that secures risk sharing partnerships to facilitate large capital investments.
Paul has worked on all sides of the insurance matrix, learning the trade as an underwriter and analyst with FCIA, negotiating reinsurance treaties with Willis Faber, and retail corporate relationships with Johnson Higgins.
Well, good afternoon, Paul. Welcome to the show!
Paul Boynton: Well, thank you, Brian. And I’m, uh, very pleased to meet you and you’re, you got a great organization. So, this is quite a pleasure for me.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I love doing these things, Paul. And it’s just amazing to get to connect with somebody virtually somewhere around the world on a great podcast and get to hear their stories.
So Paul, jumping right into your first question. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind founding Company Search Incorporated or known as CSI? What gap in the business intelligence and analytic space did you aim to fill with your platform?
Paul Boynton: Sure. I love to talk about that. I mean, my background has been mainly helping, uh, multinationals operate and expand in the emerging market space.
Managing risks that, you know, really aren’t prevalent in the USA or the West, but these are the kind of risks that are out of the control of clients, you know, like counter with their counterparties or with governments that they work with in the emerging market space. You know, things like, uh, contracts that, you know, aren’t honored or aren’t paid or things that governments do to Western or U S companies.
And you might be an American company and you get, you know, sort of swallowed up in those issues, um, like nationalization or, or a change of law or, or a trade embargo or something like that and other risks that are, you know, beyond the normal pale of business, like, you know, Companies that do things that cause civil commotion and strife and strikes and political violence and terrorism and things like that, that, you know, can cause a cessation of business or a complete abandonment of businesses and at a great cost of capital.
So, so the secret to success in those efforts through my career has been the insight. And intelligence that heretofore has been provided by people that are local partners that are embedded into the business client and those sources may be the client themselves or they may be third parties, but they provide the insight and intelligence, the info, the culture on the counterparty, but it’s all about connecting the dots.
Not only do you need to know about your counterparty, but you got to know about your counterparty’s counterparty and vendors, their vendors and customers and who owns them and. Where they fit in their market, their affiliates, all this stuff. So, you have the insight that provides a real picture of the realities of the business that you’re dealing with.
So that’s, that’s really, you know, what my career, what really was the foundation of having a good career and what I did. So, this platform is trying to be as good a resource as possible to provide that kind of insight to our subscribers. Thank you. And I do like you delving into it a little bit. I know there’s a lot of regulatory red tape, as we like to call it, no matter what country you’re in.
And I know you focus more on the Western part of the world, Western hemisphere, but your experience has certainly contributed to the space that you’re in now and what you’re doing. So, I appreciate you bringing a little backdrop to that. And actually, most of our customers are Western, like we work for, you know, I’ve worked for people, you know, in my past and currently like, like Dell and McDonald’s and Carrier and Walmart and Louis Dreyfus, big commodity groups and other private companies that are big leaders in the field.
But, but frankly, our strengths are more the info we have around the world. We actually have, um, pretty good data on businesses, about 500 million companies around the world. And, you know, the people that, you know, subscribe to our system, uh, our, our platform rather, you know, they’re everywhere, but we’re very strong.
You know, Asia is a big part of our foundation. You know, we’re really, really strong in that marketplace, but, you know, we’re, we’re trying to be as good as we are in the best countries we’re in everywhere. So, we’re trying, we’re trying to find a good uniform look at every country, everywhere. As much as we possibly can.
Brian Thomas: Thank you for sharing. I appreciate that. And Paul moving to the next question here. Risk management is a core focus in your career. What role does business analytics play in helping companies better manage risk? And how does CSI support that process?
Paul Boynton: Well, that’s a good question because absolutely, um, risk management, you know, is a broad term and broad based in scoping, because it really applies to almost every position you can think about, you know, if you’re, if you’re a lender.
You know, if you’re in supply chain management, if you’re a sales manager, compliance, legal, you know, whatever your role is in that company, you know, risk management is a part of that role, right? So, you know, going back to the connect the dots theme, understanding the risk of your counterparty. It’s a huge benefit and a huge component to helping you find new partners for your sales, but better partners that are, you know, compatible with your culture, you know, they’re financially healthy, legally vetted, they’re well positioned in their market, you know, all the things that, you know, you’re, you’re looking for, and we’re helping fortune 50 multinationals now with our platform, sometimes worldwide, but sometimes in specific geographies, you know, like for example, One of our clients is, is very strong in the Asian market, but really was lacking a resource to, to vet their customers for credit worthiness.
And so they, they subscribe to us to have that tool, but that’s evolved, uh, through time and, and, and they also use us for marketing because. We have enough data points where they can say, okay, you know, we’re looking for companies of a certain size that have been in business so long and they’re profitable and, you know, Ho Chi Minh City.
And, you know, we need to, they’ll put that into our system. We’ll spit out a nice list of pre-qualified leads. They’ll give that to their sales guys. So, we try to support, you know, and, and their legal team, I should say, also uses us and, uh, other parts of their organization use us in, in that marketplace.
So we, we try to support that risk management role and all kinds of disciplines.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And at the end of the day, you know, having some good data in the system and having a better analytics program obviously enhances that and helps your customers from around the world. So, I appreciate your share on that.
And Paul, you’ve helped secure large capital investments through risk sharing partnerships. Can you elaborate on how business intelligence tools, like CSI, can facilitate these types of high stakes business decisions?
Paul Boynton: Well, we have a very vibrant platform that, you know, represents the full spectrum of the data information knowledge hierarchy.
And, you know, that platform within that, that hierarchy, our platform is, you know, it’s almost like a live entity because it’s always updating. Always being updated, I should say, with static info that we put in, like the financial statements or trade info or legal records. And that’s not to mention the continual collection of, uh, feedback that’s provided by companies that are transacting with each other.
You know, so, you know, companies out there that are selling to each other, you know, is that a good experience or a bad experience? You know, they pay you back on time, is it? What are the opinions and things like that? That’s getting from that feedback. So our platform is, you know, has amazing data and it’s great to have, but it’s only as good as it’s collected and it’s structured and organized, you know, which we strive to do to bring the best analytics and insights to our subscribers.
So like on that front, the next stage is Obviously, AI, you know, you got to talk about AI or, you know, you’re not cool these days, but AI, you know, obviously is very real and it’s very substantial, but AI truly is only as good as the data that feeds it and in the world of business intelligence, there’s not a lot of data out there that AI can collect.
I mean, there’s public data. That’s available in some countries, you know, depending on what country and regulations it’s all over the board, then there’s publicly traded companies, but there’s way, way more private companies and SMEs out there. And so that’s the data that we have. So, from an AI view, we’re kind of backward.
We have the data, but we need AI to help us extrapolate that info better. Faster and do more features. And so, we’re, you know, we’re incorporating some fantastic features where you can now ask our platform questions like what’s the situation with the company or who’s their, who’s their competitor in a different market, or you can ask it to find you leads of different companies and different industries.
And, but it is much, much more intuitive and that will continue to evolve as time goes on. Thank you. And I, I do appreciate you highlighting the AI piece of it, say the last 18 months has been all AI, no matter who the guest was on the podcast, but no, I appreciate that. I know you have a lot of great data, and you’ve got a great analytical platform, but AI is certainly going to enhance that and that’ll be a game changer.
Brian Thomas: So again, I appreciate that. Paul, last question I have for you this evening is what emerging trends in business intelligence and analytics are you most excited about? And how is CSI positioned to leverage these advancements for your clients?
Paul Boynton: Well, I think certainly be a part about that. I mean, the intuitiveness of data and companies like ours that have the data points to model data.
That’s really, really accurate. So for forecasting purposes, for doing things like ESG ratings in markets that heretofore you would never think possible to do things like environmental ratings and rankings. Those are things that are definitely on the trend that people are doing more of. And I think we’re going to end up being somewhat of a leader in that, just because, again, you got to have the data to make the cake, and we do.
So, the world is changing. There’s lots of, uh, discourse out there in trade, and to have good, solid intelligence, so you don’t get caught out if, you know, your supply chain gets cut off because of a trade embargo or tariffs or whatever’s going on. It’s a big, big deal, and, you know, that’s certainly an area that we think we’re very good at.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you again, delving into your business, your platform and the services that you provide. As you know, with the demands of customers around the world and the advancement of technology, you’ve got to be right on the edge there of helping your customers get what they need. So, I appreciate that.
And Paul, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Paul Boynton: Well, I really appreciate the opportunity, Brian. And, uh, you know, anytime I like to do it again as, as we grow and do more. So, thank you very much.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Paul Boynton Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.