112 INTERVIEW Smarter finance LSEG’s Nej D’Jelal and Microsoft’s Niall Archibald explain how LSEG and Microsoft’s long-term partnership is reshaping productivity for financial institutions, especially with the LSEG Workspace Add-in for Excel and PowerPoint BY ALICE CHAMBERS Finance professionals, particularly in banking and wealth management roles, spend most of their days tracking markets and searching for news to understand what’s driving price changes. The ability to quickly chart data trends and annotate them with relevant insights is often the foundation of client updates and critical investment decisions. “A fundamental task is turning company data into a chart to tell a compelling story,” says Nej D’Jelal, global head of Workspace and interim co-head of Workflows at LSEG. “To do this, bankers need to incorporate news and understand the context behind data movements. It may sound simple, but it can take hours, or even days, to get right.” However, the LSEG Workspace Add-in for Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint can automate and refine this once time-consuming task, allowing it to be completed within minutes instead. Powered by LSEG’s data, Workspace helps financial services professionals quickly find the insights, news and analytics they need, based on their workflow. Available across different devices, it delivers AI-powered recommendations to support market monitoring and decision-making. The new add-in makes it easier for users to turn raw data into charts and slides, complete with insights from trusted news sources. “One of the prominent banker workflows is to use Excel and an add-in from a data provider to discover, visualise, analyse and action financial data,” says D’Jelal. “This is a very important set of tasks, but at the same time, it’s very hard to comprehend. We worked with customers to target pain points like this in their workflow experiences. We crystallised how complex and cumbersome it is to collect data, analyse it and prepare the information for a client meeting by transferring data from a spreadsheet to a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. By reimagining this experience, we can help bankers be more productive by delivering smarter, faster and more confident information to their clients.” LSEG’s focus on solving real-world challenges has shaped how LSEG approaches solution development. “Traditionally, stakeholders drive how solutions are built, but we work with our customers directly to understand the problems they’re facing,” says D’Jela. “We then build solutions that address those specific challenges, rather than just meeting a set of predefined requirements. This approach leads to more effective, user-focused outcomes.” This collaborative, customer-first approach is central to LSEG’s strategic partnership with Microsoft. The teams work together to build specialised financial services solutions directly within the Microsoft tools customers already rely on. “We have access to Microsoft 365 engineers,” explains D’Jelal. “This means we can meet customers where they are in their chosen workflow. That’s the anchoring point: our ecosystem offering adapts to whichever platform best fits the customer’s needs.” LSEG is playing a crucial role in helping Microsoft to bridge the gap between general productivity tools and the specialised needs of “ Our ecosystem offering adapts to whichever platform best fits customer needs” NEJ D’JELAL, LSEG
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