Think your analysts already know
everything they need to know? Test it.

Your analysts have investigated the company. They've checked the directors, reviewed the financials, followed the connections and looked into anything that raised concern, sometimes over several days.

They're good at what they do, and you've made a commercial decision on the strength of their research.

But could Dani help them go further?

Take a company, director, borrower, counterparty or case your team has already researched. Give it to Dani, Turnstone Intelligence's AI company research analyst, and ask her a question your team has already answered. Then see what she could add to their work.

Dani might uncover connections worth exploring, identify information that warrants further investigation or help your analysts carry out similar research more efficiently in future.

Give Dani a company you already know

Think about the investigations that have taken up the most time in your business. Perhaps a borrower whose ownership structure needed untangling, a defendant whose financial position was difficult to establish, or a failed company with a sprawling network of directors.

Pick one your team knows well. You'll know which sources your analysts checked and how long the work took, and you may remember the leads they couldn't pursue because further investigation stopped being worth the time. You already have a benchmark for judging what Dani produces.

Powered by Turnstone's DataNexus platform, which brings together UK company, director, shareholder, financial, insolvency, and creditor information, Dani investigates companies, directors, connected businesses and commercial cases using proprietary information alongside approved external sources. She can follow up on her own findings and produce sourced reports for your team to examine.

You can give Dani the same starting point as your analysts and see what she could add to research you already trust. There's no need to find a new case or prepare an elaborate demonstration brief.

What would you ask Dani?

Choose something your team has already spent time investigating, ideally where the research influenced an important commercial decision.

Litigation funding: would you still fund the case?

Your investment committee has reviewed the merits and the prospects of recovery, and the decision to fund or reject has been made. Now give Dani the same case and ask her to look into the defendant, directors, connected businesses, and any adverse history.

Are there relationships your original investigation didn't explore? Could anything she finds affect your view of recovery?

Dani can also research opportunities against a funder's investment criteria. For litigation funders, time spent assessing cases that go nowhere is a commercial cost, so faster initial research could help your team concentrate on the cases worth pursuing.

Insolvency: how far did the investigation go?

Director histories, previous failures, connected companies, and winding-up petitions can all be relevant to an insolvency investigation, and tracing the links between them often means hours of manual research.

Dani has access to Turnstone's specialist insolvency information, including proprietary creditor-loss data. Give her a company or director your team has investigated and ask her to trace previous failures and connected entities.

Could she identify further lines of enquiry? Are there connected parties worth investigating, or information that could point towards a recovery?

Specialist lending: would you make the same decision?

A borrower can satisfy routine credit checks and still need substantial investigation. Perhaps the ownership structure is complicated, or the directors have previous businesses that warrant scrutiny.

Your credit team has already done the work and reached a decision. Give Dani the same borrower and ask her to investigate the directors, related businesses, previous insolvencies and any adverse information.

Would anything she finds have prompted another conversation? Could her research have helped your team reach its decision sooner?

Credit insurance: what's behind the exposure?

Your underwriters have bureau reports, financial information, payment indicators and their own experience to draw on. Even so, a credit report won't necessarily explain every relationship or event that could be relevant to the decision.

Give Dani a borderline exposure your team has assessed and ask her to look into the directors, ownership, related companies and insolvency history. Does she add anything that would have changed how comfortable you felt with the limit?

Commercial disputes: who else is involved?

Give Dani a defendant or counterparty from a case your team has worked on and ask what further company intelligence could be relevant.

Are there related entities or past conduct that could strengthen your position? Could she open up a line of enquiry your team hadn't considered?

How would you judge the results?

You've got your team's original research to hand, so you can see where Dani could add value to their work. Here are three things worth looking at.

1. Did Dani answer the question?

Go back to the original brief. What was your team trying to establish, and what did they need to know before reaching a decision?

Now hold Dani's findings up against it. Has she answered the question? Is the research detailed enough? Does it address the issues your analysts considered important?

If your team had to work through several connected companies or a complicated director history, look at how Dani handled the same trail.

2. Did she find anything your team hadn't?

Compare the material findings. Did Dani identify a relevant directorship, connected company, insolvency event or piece of adverse information that could add to your team's original research? Did she highlight a relationship worth investigating further?

Then think about what that information would have meant at the time. Would it have prompted further investigation, influenced the assessment, or helped your team reach a decision?

Dani may also confirm what your team has already established. That's useful too. You can examine the supporting evidence and consider how Dani might help your analysts complete similar investigations more efficiently in future.

Further reading: What standard due diligence misses (and what it costs you)

3. Would you use Dani again?

Start with the time she took and how easily your analysts could work with her report. Each material finding in Dani's research links back to the evidence behind it, so your analysts can verify the information before relying on it.

Then think about how much time your team spent collecting information and compiling the original report. If Dani can complete comparable work faster, how often could that help across your existing caseload?

“Our analysts have this covered.”

Then they've already given you the perfect benchmark for testing Dani. Experienced analysts know where to look and when a finding deserves attention. They also know how quickly a routine investigation can expand.

One director leads to another company. That company has a previous insolvency. Another director appears, with interests in several more businesses. Each connection creates further records to check and questions to answer.

Your analysts can follow those leads. But when they're managing multiple cases, the time available for each investigation is limited. Dani can undertake detailed research and present the findings for review, leaving your analysts to interpret the evidence and advise on the decision.

You employ experienced people for their judgement. How much of their time do you want them spending on the searching?

“Will Dani mean another system for our analysts to learn?”

Your team already has established research processes and reporting formats. Introducing another tool can be difficult to justify if it creates additional administration.

Dani can be briefed by email and works with existing reporting templates, and your analysts can come back to her with follow-up questions. They can then review her findings and decide what to do next using their existing processes.

For commercially sensitive cases, Turnstone can discuss the scope of an investigation and the information required before any material is shared.

Give Dani your toughest case

Pick the investigation that took your team the longest, or the one that left them with questions you never had time to answer.

Give Dani the same question. See what she could add to your team's findings, check the supporting evidence and explore how she could help with future investigations.