Challenge

A growing investment management firm with approximately $19 billion in assets under management was experiencing business challenges due to having a mix of disparate software systems and home-grown applications. To produce firm-wide reporting, their team had to manually combine data from a wide variety of sources, some of which were not readily available. This process was time-consulting and required excessive human capital; it also resulted in errors and delays that inhibited their ability to grow and scale their business. Also, the firm was running its direct, non-fund investments through a manual, spreadsheet-driven process that was inefficient and error-prone, resulting in less time spent on managing their client’s investments.

Approach

Portfolio BI successfully implemented the Portfolio BI Portfolio Management System (PBI PMS) and Portfolio BI Enterprise Data Management (EDM) to consolidate the firm’s data sources and optimize its firm-wide operations.

Portfolio BI EDM, which includes the Data Warehouse and Security Master modules, consolidated the firm’s multiple data sources into a single investment and security reference data repository for both their private fund and direct investments. PBI EDM provided a golden source of data required for a variety of operational functions, including CRM, risk management, and performance reporting. PBI EDM allows the firm to leverage the systems that support these functions in a best-in-class model by centralizing all firm-wide information into an easy-to-use Data Warehouse with both as-of and knowledge date support. Also, PBI helped the firm successfully integrate all of its internal and third-party systems.

We also implemented PBI EDM, which provides order management and portfolio management functionality for the firm’s direct, non-fund investments. This includes ETFs, index swaps, FX hedges, and other directly traded securities in which the firm transacts. The PBI PMS combines straight-through processing from a variety of execution sources with real-time attribution of P&L and cash across the firm’s trading strategies.

Solution

The firm now has a centralized Data Management platform and Data Governance model that matches their unique strategy and business workflows while aligning with their current and future business needs. This has increased the frim's operational efficiency and streamlined its firm-wide reporting process. They are now able to access data from a single source while keeping their best-in-class vendor model intact.

Also, with PBI PMS, the firm can run their passive and hedging trading strategies without relying on a spreadsheet, allowing them to manage their portfolios without unnecessary manual data entry.