Research Solutions Stock

Research Solutions, Inc. provides a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) research platform.

The company provides two service offerings to its customers: a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) research platform (Platforms) typically sold via annual auto-renewing license agreements and the sale of published scientific, technical, and medical (STM) content sold as individual articles (Transactions) either stand alone or via the Platform. When customers utilize the Platform to purchase Transactions it is packaged as a single solution that enables life science and other research intensive organizations to accelerate their research and development activities with faster, access and management of STM articles used throughout the intellectual property development lifecycle. The Platform typically delivers a ROI to the customer via more effectively managing Transaction costs and saving researchers time during the research process.

Platforms

The company’s cloud-based SaaS research Platform consists of proprietary software and Internet-based interfaces sold to customers for an annual subscription fee. Legacy functionality allows customers to initiate orders, route orders for the lowest cost acquisition, manage transactions, obtain spend and usage reporting, automate authentication, and connect seamlessly to in-house and third-party software systems. Customers can also enhance the information resources they already own or license and collaborate around bibliographic information.

Additional functionality has recently been added to the company’s Platform in the form of interactive app-like components. An alternative to manual data filtering, identification and extraction, the apps are designed to gather, augment, and extract data across a variety of formats, including bibliographic citations, tables of contents, RSS feeds, PDF files, XML feeds, and web content. The company continues to develop new apps in order to build an ecosystem of apps. Together, these apps will provide researchers with an ‘all in one’ toolkit, delivering efficiencies in core research workflows and knowledge creation processes.

The company’s Platform is deployed as a single, multi-tenant system across its entire customer base. Customers securely access the Platform through online web interfaces and via web service APIs that enable customers to leverage Platform features and functionality from within in-house and third-party software systems. The Platform can also be configured to satisfy a customer’s individual preferences.

Transactions

The company’s Platform provides its customers with a single source to the universe of published STM content that includes over 80 million existing STM articles and over one million newly published STM articles each year. STM content is sold to the company’s customers on a transaction basis. Researchers and knowledge workers in life science and other research-intensive organizations generally require single copies of published STM journal articles for use in their research activities. These individuals are the company’s primary users.

The company’s Platform allows customers to find and download digital versions of STM articles that are critical to their research. Customers submit orders for the articles they need which the company sources and electronically delivers to them generally in under an hour; in many cases under one minute. This service is generally known in the industry as single article delivery or document delivery. The company also obtains the necessary permission licenses from the content publisher or other rights holder so that its customer’s use complies with applicable copyright laws. The company has arrangements with hundreds of content publishers that allow it to distribute their content. The majority of these publishers provide the company with electronic access to their content, which allows the company to electronically deliver single articles to its customers often in a matter of minutes.

Growth Strategy

The key elements of the company's strategy are to seek to grow its customer base through targeted direct and channel promotions of its Platform to potential customers; focus on product development; explore strategic acquisitions and combinations; expand internationally through increased sales to companies located abroad, particularly in Europe and Japan; and have arrangements with all of the major STM content publishers and most of the smaller STM publishers that allow the company to distribute their content, and the company regularly advances new business opportunities, such as rentals through amendments to existing agreements.

Sales and Marketing

The company relies on marketing in close cooperation with value-based selling to acquire new small, medium and large geographically-dispersed enterprises.

Competition

The company’s competition includes:

App –Like Toolkit Providers: The company considers the rapidly increasing number of companies that are focused on specialized toolkits for researchers as competition. These include Accelrys, Benchling, ChemAxon, Comsol Multiphysics, Genomenom, Main GCl, Workbench, Molsoft, and SnapGene.

STM Single Article Delivery Vendors and Content Aggregators: The company’s primary competitors for global, full-service single article delivery services are Copyright Clearance Center; regional interlibrary loan networks throughout the world, such as those owned and operated by OCLC; and numerous national libraries located outside of the United States.

History

The company was founded in 2006. It was incorporated in the state of Nevada in 2006. The company was formerly known as Derycz Scientific, Inc. and changed its name to Research Solutions, Inc. in 2013.