The Modernization Journey: Improving Visibility for Stronger Investment Decisions

Asset managers are continually striving for the newest ways to achieve higher returns and beat performance goals. The better firms can perform, the better they can serve their clients and expand growth. A modern technology stack is that competitive advantage. Firms that embrace modernization are able to make more informed investment decisions, faster, than without technology innovations.

In IMTC’s first webinar in a series of five focused on performance – The Modernization Journey: Digital Transformation Lessons for Investment Managers – our distinguished panelists discussed the ways investment managers enhance investment decisions to stay ahead of the curve.

Watch the on demand webinar to see how investment managers can stay ahead of the curve.

Technology-driven decision making improves the client experience

Clients are at the heart of every investment management firm. However, clients are increasingly demanding more – higher portfolio returns, enhanced transparency into decisions, and new customized solutions – while expecting lower fees. Firms continually need to assess the quality of its customer experience. Fixed income portfolio managers need to modernize their allocation strategy because of these increasing demands from clients.

“We’ve always been a people business. In asset management, everything we do is about the relationships that you have, and now you are more informed to have a better conversation with clients because of technology that produces information that’s going to be a benefit to the client overall.” – Charles Dwyer, Global Operations & Technology Consultant

However, many firms will fall behind because they are so reliant on Excel spreadsheets and handwritten notes rather than benefiting from emerging technology that increases efficiency and productivity.

In a report released earlier this year by BNY Mellon Investment Management, two-thirds of surveyed asset managers believe that developments in artificial intelligence (AI) would ‘definitely’ rewrite the future of the investment industry. By leveraging AI to make their workflows more efficient, portfolio managers are able to focus on enhancing the client experience rather than organizing and collecting data. Furthermore, data integrations and advanced analytics tools empowers portfolio managers to customize their reporting, increase their capacity for higher-value work, and, ultimately, improve investment performance.

Stronger decisions rely on increased fixed income insights

In the modernization journey, firms are focused on creating a technological ecosystem so that portfolio managers have increasing visibility of data across the firm. Think about the thousands of data points that could go into an investment decision. How can those be analyzed effectively? Connecting data points across the firm not only reduces the burden of manual data entry into multiple systems but unifies data to become actionable.

Marc Piccuirro, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at Wellington Management, discusses how he led technology advancements in order to make effective investment decisions with the vast amounts of data they have. Listen to him explain how their tech addresses the unique client guidelines, extensive number of CUSIPs, and strategic portfolio decisions.

When these kinds connections are configured, it drastically reduces the administrative burden and enables portfolio managers to streamline their efforts. What are the main objectives investment firms are looking for when implementing technology to enable stronger decisions?

• Minimize mundane tasks: Using automation to reduce manual efforts and reconciliations so that valuable time can be devoted to analyzing insights and making better decisions.
• Improve access to portfolio insights: Connecting data that exists in different systems into one centralized platform enhances portfolio managers’ ability to make informed decisions.
• Expand analytics into new frontiers: Exploring new sources of data, predictive analytics, and AI provides massive gains on insights into portfolio performance that would not be possible without advanced analytics.

“Now with this tool in hand, I can get this multi-dimensional data filled problem and iterate on it. Not only can I build that portfolio, but I can test the risk reward across different points in a moment’s notice… It’s been a game changer for us.” – Marc Piccuirro

The time is now for portfolio managers to modernize and deliver the results their clients are expecting. The firm that unifies its data and embraces new technologies will not only be able to absorb knowledge and detect patterns much faster, but also outperform competitors with new and fresh ideas in real-time.

Technology is only as good as how it is used. Our IMS is designed by and for fixed income professionals, empowering them to take action and make decisions quickly and accurately with real-time data and analytics capabilities. It allows you to future-proof your business; driving operational efficiencies, mitigating risk and delivering performance, to ultimately enable business growth.