Investment Managers Put Improving Client Communication Top of Their Strategic Agenda
(PRLEAP.COM) LONDON – Exceeding clients’ expectations, whilst also improving operational cost and efficiency, are prerequisites of any commitment to improve client reporting, according to the findings of a new survey from Skywire Software, the leading client reporting solutions provider.
The survey, conducted last month across 28 of the UK’s leading investment management companies, highlighted a number of key market drivers affecting the existing development and delivery of client reports.
Key findings included:
• Only 17.9% of the sample felt their ability to deliver bespoke reports was ‘exceptional’, with the remaining 62.1% as ‘good, but with room for improvement’
• 21.4% felt that the biggest issue in turn for their clients was the lack of personalisation in reporting, while 14% felt that a lack of accuracy was a major concern and 21.4% felt that timeliness was also a major issue for clients
• Just under 60% (59.4%) cited increased automation as key to improving existing reporting systems; a further 25.9% stated that increased use of electronic delivery channels such as email would also improve reporting
• Accuracy – and its improvement – also was cited in 14.8% of companies asked
• 50% of those asked stated that the short turnaround times expected were a major impediment to delivering bespoke client reports
• The biggest headache with client reporting systems was the long processing times (40.7% of the sample) and the need for manual intervention: 37%
Tracey Robinson, vice president and managing director, EMEA, Skywire Software, stated: “The communications clients receive from their investment managers form the very backbone of how they judge quality of service. Moreover, with the growing popularity of multi-manager products and services, the importance of client reporting in particular is being thrown into ever-sharper focus.
The sophistication and complexity of clients’ reporting requirements also has risen immeasurably over the last few years, and how well these needs are served has a potentially critical impact on their choice of investment manager. Increasingly, clients require reports tailored to their particular tastes, as well as an aggregated view of their assets invested through several different organisations,” she added. “The findings of this survey seem to vindicate this point of view. In the past the adage was that to be successful, you either offered great performance or great client servicing. In today’s competitive markets and with ever more sophisticated clients, it is fast becoming the case that today’s investment managers are required to offer both.”
When it comes to finding an area within investment management firms that affords fertile ground for cost and efficiency improvement, client communication is the obvious candidate. Recent estimates reveal that the cost of client documents to a business is on average around 15% of its revenue. Within investment management, the percentage is undoubtedly higher, and the amount of time and money that can be saved through efficiency improvements in this area is immense.
Inefficient manual processes still abound in client communication, and even where automation has been substantial, systems are rarely integrated, meaning that many costly hours are absorbed in drawing together information from incompatible systems. And those systems themselves are invariably highly inflexible, requiring many man-days within the IT department to make even the smallest change to a standard document.
Many firms also have yet to Web-enable their systems. So, with print runs of fact-sheets often extending to hundreds or thousands of copies and many of the monthly and quarterly client reports being some forty plus pages long, millions of pounds are being lost in unnecessary printing costs.
Robinson continued: “Furthermore, it follows that if communications can be made more efficient, so too can compliance. The very process of ensuring compliance often involves massive and unnecessary expenditure. For example, according to research by Meta Group, obtaining internal approval of regulated document content and ensuring the correct version goes into new documents often takes either days or weeks for 65-70% of organisations. This is a major indirect cost that many organisations have not yet fully identified.”
There can be no doubt improving client communication has the potential to deliver major benefits for investment management organisations in terms of both revenue growth (through enhanced customer relationships) and increased profitably (through lower costs).
“From a technological perspective, perhaps the most important issue to crack, in the interests of both cost-efficiency and quality of service, is the ease of integration of information held in different systems. Today’s investment management organisations must communicate across a variety of channels, co-ordinating information drawn from multiple databases, potentially across multiple funds or products, and increasingly from different organisations. It is critical for today’s client reporting systems to be automated and combine data from these disparate sources, manage the workflow and run produce personalised, multi-channel reports, without the need for the constant involvement of the already overloaded IT department,” concluded Robinson.
About Skywire Software
Skywire Software is a leading software company serving the insurance, financial services, legal and professional services, healthcare and utility industries. The Company develops industry-specific software products that help companies integrate processes, people and information. The company’s products and services enable financial service companies to create, publish, manage and archive high-volume, personalised customer communications including investment reports, financial statements and eforms. Skywire Software is dedicated to providing an unparalleled customer experience to more than 2,300 customers worldwide. For more information, contact Skywire Software’s EMEA office at +44 (0) 1372 366 200 or the Company’s headquarters at 1-800-735-6620 or visit www.skywiresoftware.com.
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The survey, conducted last month across 28 of the UK’s leading investment management companies, highlighted a number of key market drivers affecting the existing development and delivery of client reports.
Key findings included:
• Only 17.9% of the sample felt their ability to deliver bespoke reports was ‘exceptional’, with the remaining 62.1% as ‘good, but with room for improvement’
• 21.4% felt that the biggest issue in turn for their clients was the lack of personalisation in reporting, while 14% felt that a lack of accuracy was a major concern and 21.4% felt that timeliness was also a major issue for clients
• Just under 60% (59.4%) cited increased automation as key to improving existing reporting systems; a further 25.9% stated that increased use of electronic delivery channels such as email would also improve reporting
• Accuracy – and its improvement – also was cited in 14.8% of companies asked
• 50% of those asked stated that the short turnaround times expected were a major impediment to delivering bespoke client reports
• The biggest headache with client reporting systems was the long processing times (40.7% of the sample) and the need for manual intervention: 37%
Tracey Robinson, vice president and managing director, EMEA, Skywire Software, stated: “The communications clients receive from their investment managers form the very backbone of how they judge quality of service. Moreover, with the growing popularity of multi-manager products and services, the importance of client reporting in particular is being thrown into ever-sharper focus.
The sophistication and complexity of clients’ reporting requirements also has risen immeasurably over the last few years, and how well these needs are served has a potentially critical impact on their choice of investment manager. Increasingly, clients require reports tailored to their particular tastes, as well as an aggregated view of their assets invested through several different organisations,” she added. “The findings of this survey seem to vindicate this point of view. In the past the adage was that to be successful, you either offered great performance or great client servicing. In today’s competitive markets and with ever more sophisticated clients, it is fast becoming the case that today’s investment managers are required to offer both.”
When it comes to finding an area within investment management firms that affords fertile ground for cost and efficiency improvement, client communication is the obvious candidate. Recent estimates reveal that the cost of client documents to a business is on average around 15% of its revenue. Within investment management, the percentage is undoubtedly higher, and the amount of time and money that can be saved through efficiency improvements in this area is immense.
Inefficient manual processes still abound in client communication, and even where automation has been substantial, systems are rarely integrated, meaning that many costly hours are absorbed in drawing together information from incompatible systems. And those systems themselves are invariably highly inflexible, requiring many man-days within the IT department to make even the smallest change to a standard document.
Many firms also have yet to Web-enable their systems. So, with print runs of fact-sheets often extending to hundreds or thousands of copies and many of the monthly and quarterly client reports being some forty plus pages long, millions of pounds are being lost in unnecessary printing costs.
Robinson continued: “Furthermore, it follows that if communications can be made more efficient, so too can compliance. The very process of ensuring compliance often involves massive and unnecessary expenditure. For example, according to research by Meta Group, obtaining internal approval of regulated document content and ensuring the correct version goes into new documents often takes either days or weeks for 65-70% of organisations. This is a major indirect cost that many organisations have not yet fully identified.”
There can be no doubt improving client communication has the potential to deliver major benefits for investment management organisations in terms of both revenue growth (through enhanced customer relationships) and increased profitably (through lower costs).
“From a technological perspective, perhaps the most important issue to crack, in the interests of both cost-efficiency and quality of service, is the ease of integration of information held in different systems. Today’s investment management organisations must communicate across a variety of channels, co-ordinating information drawn from multiple databases, potentially across multiple funds or products, and increasingly from different organisations. It is critical for today’s client reporting systems to be automated and combine data from these disparate sources, manage the workflow and run produce personalised, multi-channel reports, without the need for the constant involvement of the already overloaded IT department,” concluded Robinson.
About Skywire Software
Skywire Software is a leading software company serving the insurance, financial services, legal and professional services, healthcare and utility industries. The Company develops industry-specific software products that help companies integrate processes, people and information. The company’s products and services enable financial service companies to create, publish, manage and archive high-volume, personalised customer communications including investment reports, financial statements and eforms. Skywire Software is dedicated to providing an unparalleled customer experience to more than 2,300 customers worldwide. For more information, contact Skywire Software’s EMEA office at +44 (0) 1372 366 200 or the Company’s headquarters at 1-800-735-6620 or visit www.skywiresoftware.com.
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Contact Information
Helen Pitts
Skywire Software
Email Skywire Software
972-377-1110