How you can service more business without increasing your headcount

“We are living in a fee-compressed world with ever-increasing pressure to add funds without increasing headcount. The reason I love Fund Recs is because I’m able to bring on more funds without having to worry about adding to the operations team.” CFO, Global Fund Administrator. 

The industry doesn’t need reminding about the unprecedented pressure on their margins as fierce competition continues to compress fees. They will also know all about the growing challenge and expense in time and money of both recruiting and retaining key staff.  

Combining downward fee pressure with increased costs due to onerous and ever-increasing regulatory requirements, expanded product offerings to meet investor demand and expansion into new markets has put great strain on industry workforces. Never has the phrase “do more with less” been more apt.  

The good news is there is a way to achieve that. Technology-driven efficiencies are helping firms become more scalable than ever before. New business can be added without further stretching already thin resources or needing to add more headcount. Here we look at three examples of where we have helped our clients to achieve more with less.

Time-saving software 

We are all familiar with software that we use daily: PDFs, spreadsheets, documents. These are all useful and essential tools.  

But, what happens when you need to combine data from many sources? Or what happens when you need an audit trail through several different file types? What do you do? You might just copy and paste. Or you might simply use an integrating software solution to combine, track and analyse the lot at the time of your choosing.  

We’ve got another answer. You can easily connect all your data sources without code. Fund Recs Fusion automatically processes all the acronyms: XLS, CSV, SWIFT, PDF, TXT, XML and more. It combines, enriches, and analyses your data automatically, replicating all the functionality you know and like on spreadsheets. 

And the upshot of all that is less time spent on mind-numbing, low-grade repetitive tasks, freeing staff for more engaging and productive work, that will not only keep them interested but will keep them wanting to stick around too. 

Driving efficiencies through automation  

Using our Fusion and Velocity solutions to drive efficiency our clients have been able to save thousands of hours by automating previously manual tasks. 

Daily Data Preparation  

Our client - a global fund services provider - had a team spending two to three hours each day manually aggregating data from across PDF, XML and CSV files to cut and paste into a format for use further downstream. As their administration business grew, so did the time it took each morning to prepare the data.  

Using Fund Recs Fusion, we have reduced this time by automating the aggregation, normalisation, and transformation process of the data. We consume the PDF, XML and CSV files and produce a single, standard format for delivery directly into their fund accounting system.  

Three Weeks to Three Days 

In preparation for an annual fund audit, one client spent upwards of three weeks manually reconciling positions on Excel. The portfolio in question was particularly large and complex requiring multiple maker/checker reviews due to the manual process employed.  

Deploying our Velocity solution to automate the reconciliation process reduced the end-to-end process to less than three days.  

Straight Through Reconciliations 

One client came to us with a problem. They needed an intuitive reconciliation platform that would reduce the need for additional resources every time they added new funds. They needed more scalability to meet growing business requirements.  

Our Velocity reconciliation solution delivered a completely automated process covering data ingestion, powerful auto match & break creation logic, reconciliation and management reporting. For our client, this meant a fully automated, straight through process for cash reconciliation and a time saving of over 10 hours per day. 

Driving the straight through process is our Strategy Service feature, which is a dynamic rules-based engine that gives business users the power to build enhanced matching and break creation logic. All done without the need for any coding.  

Where technology comes into play 

As you can see, automation increases efficiencies without adding to staff numbers. Saving time, refocusing resources and removing the tedium of manual data manipulation has given our clients significant, tangible benefits.  

More and more companies now realise the only logical solution is to avail of technology-driven efficiencies. Investment in new technology solutions across all facets of business is growing fast and is expected to approach $6.8 trillion in three years to 2023.  

By 2022, 70% of all organisations will have accelerated use of digital technologies, transforming existing business processes to drive customer engagement, employee productivity, and business resiliency. As the world rushes to meet its digital destiny, maybe it’s time to join in. 

To find out more on how Fund Recs can help investment managers to service more business without increasing headcount, request a demo.