Businessmodel of Neustar

Customer Segments

Neustar provides information and analytics services to a diverse customer base. The Company principally serves marketing and security professionals operating across the following industries:

• Internet and Technology, comprising technology companies, software developers, internet companies, ecommerce companies, and other businesses with online portals;
• Financial Services, comprising various banking institutions and financial services providers;
• Media and Entertainment, comprising online media providers such as news and entertainment portals, as well as industry journals, online magazines, and other digital media businesses;
• Telecommunications, comprising telecommunications service providers and internet service providers; and
• Marketing, comprising various digital marketing and more traditional marketing companies with exposure to the internet. Neustar includes a number of high-profile companies from various sectors among its clients, including Google, John Lewis, Lenovo, Tesco, Forbes.com, and Hilton Worldwide. The Company notably has several contracts in place with North American Portability Management LLC, an industry group that represents all telecommunications service providers in the US, which collectively accounted for more than 40% of the Company’s 2015 revenue.

Neustar primarily serves clients across its domestic market of the US. The Company, however, also does substantial international business, serving clients around the world.

Value Propositions

Neustar provides value to its clients in the following ways:

• Its reputation and industry standing, with the Company established as a leading name in the field of information and analytics services, having a track record for providing effective and reliable solutions, and counting among its clients high-profile names such as Google and Lenovo;
• Its broad range of solutions, with the Company offering a diverse portfolio of analytics solutions, including data onboarding, customer intelligence, and audience planning, and serving customers across multiple business sectors, such as media, telecommunications, and marketing;
• Its proprietary technologies, with the Company developing and utilising a range of proprietary technologies that set its offerings apart from those of its competitors, and enabling it to provide unique solutions; and
• Its accessibility, with the Company operating an online platform that can be accessed by clients online via desktop browsers or through the Company’s mobile app, enabling allowing customers to access key data from anywhere. ### Channels

Neustar operates a website at www.neustar.biz, through which it provides information on its various services, targeted solutions, and corporate activities.  The Company’s website also serves as a portal for its various online platforms, each of which hosts to a different collection of tools and solutions.

These platforms include ElementOne, InfoZone, UltraDNS, and Webmetrics, and enable customers to access the Company’s various tools and solutions independently. The Company also offers tools and certain functionality through its mobile app. Despite Neustar’s online presence, the Company does not appear to operate an online sales channel.

Neustar makes its sales and engages in marketing activities through its dedicated in-house marketing and sales organisation, which operates out of the Company’s network of offices across the US. The Company\s sales and marketing teams are primarily aligned by industry vertical including financial services, media and advertising, technology and communications.

According to its annual report, Neustar’s sales employees that service the technology vertical also support the sales teams aligned with the other industry verticals. Under this sales model, the Company seeks to deliver solutions that address the most critical challenges faced by its clients effectively and efficiently.

Customer Relationships

Despite its active online presence, Neustar does not appear to operate a self-service online sales channel. Instead, the Company makes its sales through a dedicated in-house sales force, which consults directly with clients in order to ensure they are provided solutions that most appropriately cover their individual requirements. The Company provides much of its services under private commercial and government contracts, primarily under a fixed-fee model.

Neustar provides ongoing support to its customers, who are able to access various support resources and tools through the Company’s dedicated online support portal. Customers can also contact the Company directly over the phone, by email, or via an online contact form in order to access personalised assistance with queries and technical questions. Additionally, the Company provides online resources such as blog posts, case studies, videos, and FAQs to customers through its website, which can be accessed independently.

Neustar also operates several social media accounts – including with Facebook and twitter – through which it is able to provide company updates and interact with customers directly.

Key Activities

Neustar is a provider of cloud-based information services and analytics solutions. It offers a range of tools and services through its online platforms that enable clients across the media and entertainment, internet and technology, telecommunications, financial services, marketing and information technology sectors to promote and protect their businesses.

The Company provides clients access to proprietary differentiated data sets, offering informative, real-time analytics, which enable clients to make data-driven decisions. Neustar targets two professional fields: marketing, offering chief marketing officers a comprehensive suite of services to plan their media spend, identify and locate desired customers, invest effectively in marketing campaigns, deliver relevant offers, and measure the performance of these activities; and security, providing a range of solutions to security professionals that seek to maximise web performance and protect against malicious attacks.

Key Partners

Neustar works in close collaboration with a network of partners across multiple fields and sectors. These partners support the Company’s core operations and can be organised broadly as follows:

• Supplier and Vendor Partners, comprising suppliers of services, equipment, and tools that are utilised across the enterprise in support of its data collection and analysis operations;
• Marketing and Referral Partners, comprising various online businesses and clients of the Company that promote the Company’s services and drive traffic to the Company and its website in return for commissions;
• Technology Partners, comprising various software developers and information technology companies that assist in developing and implementing the Company’s various online analytics and data collection offerings; and
• Strategic and Alliance Partners, comprising market leading companies across multiple business sectors with which the Company collaborates on a range of joint projects, including marketing and branding assignments. Neustar lists key partners on its website, naming a number of high-profile companies within the technology space, including Google, Amazon Web Services, Adobe, Salesforce, Facebook, and SAP.

Key Resources

Neustar’s key resources are its technologies and intellectual properties, its online platforms, its IT and communications infrastructure, its sales and marketing channels, its partnerships, and its personnel.

Neustar’s success relies in part upon on its ability to protect its proprietary technologies.

The Company depends on trade secret and copyright law to protect its technology, including our software, network design, and subject matter expertise, and enters into confidentiality and license agreements with its employees, consultants, outsourcing suppliers, partners, distributors, and clients. Searches of records published by the US Patent and Trademark Office identified several patent applications filed in Neustar’s name, including application entitled ‘System and method for delivering text messages to call centers’, ‘Method and system for detecting network compromise’ and ‘Methods, systems, and apparatus for predicting characteristics of a user’.

Neustar owns and or leases a number of properties across the US, as well as in India, Colombia, Costa Rica, Australia, and the UK, used for administrative, sales, marketing, support and research and development operations.

Cost Structure

Neustar incurs costs in relation to the development of its technologies and intellectual properties, the operation and development of its online platforms, the maintenance of its IT and communications infrastructure, the operation of its sales channels and the implementation of its marketing campaigns, the management of its partnerships, the procurement of services, and the retention of its personnel.

In 2015 Neustar recorded total operating costs in the amount $763.40 million. This comprised cost of revenue totalling $286.24 million, sales and marketing expenses totalling $206.29 million, research and development expenses totalling $25.68 million, and general and administrative costs totalling $118.65 million.

Revenue Streams

Neustar generates revenue through the provision of various security and marketing-focused data analytics and information services via a range of cloud-based online platforms. The Company derives the bulk of its revenue under services and sales contracts agreed individually with clients.

In 2015 Neustar generated revenue for the year in the amount of $1.05 billion, up on the $963.59 million recorded by the Company in 2014.