In celebrating 25 years of working with institutional asset managers, wealth managers, hedge funds, fund of funds and family offices, we’ve encountered the entire spectrum of data maturity in these firms. It’s easiest to place these firms into 3 categories of data maturity that reflect how they process data and the level of automation they use to gain an edge against their peers:

Hindsight

These firms typically do a lot of manual manipulation of data and the knowledge that they glean from their data is all about looking in the rear view mirror to figure out what happened.

Insight

At this stage, firms have implemented solutions that automate data bridges/integrations between core systems and aggregate data so they can go looking for information that is current and report on it for further evaluation.

Foresight

These are the firms that are growing both their client base and margins simultaneously because they can service more clients without adding to staff.  Their information is automatically processed, parceled and proactively delivered to its target (individuals and teams) and the data content is matched with the role of the target or business unit.  No one is searching for data, instead, valuable information is created and sent to them:

• - Compliance Officers are notified of exceptions, outliers and drift that is or may be cause for concern,
• - Operations receives critical data elements necessary for portfolio setup and maintenance,
• - Client Service knows who’s calling and has the client record on their screen before they even answer an inbound call, and are reminded of upcoming and pending tasks
  
• - Portfolio Managers and Traders are in tune with the prioritization of what needs to happen when, and in which portfolio
• - Sales and Marketing are inextricably linked so that Sales success and failure helps refine and improve Marketing efforts in a heuristic feedback loop.
• - CEO/CFO/COO can see trends in growth of specific portfolio strategies and funds, most profitable distribution channels, intermediaries and referrals sources, and perhaps more importantly areas that are untapped or declining.

Some advisory firms zoom through these phases but most get stuck within the first two. 

UNAPEN will continue to help firms evolve in order to be more competitive and profitable than their peers.