The challenging environment of the last few years propelled a very dramatic shift within mutual fund operations towards leveraging technology solutions and advancing technology transformation. With a renewed focus on efficiency, the industry is leaning into technology overhauls driven by automation and smart workflows.
In a recent interview, a CTO of one fund servicing company discussed the fund management tasks most ripe for automation, including the operational areas that have the biggest data flows.
The accelerated adoption of modern technologies, particularly the cloud, as well as an increased inclination to collaborate and the evolution of business demand, are all driving this large-scale industry change.
As the central principle of sound data management practice, automation is the key to reducing complexities, optimizing processes, achieving data consistency, and reducing errors.
The complexity and the volume of mutual fund data continues to increase, which means it’s crucial for a mutual fund company’s automation program to be robust, efficient, and all-encompassing to avoid manual processing errors, inefficient allocation of resources, and unnecessary risk.
Effective data automation utilizes straight-through processing, systematic master creation, and fund-family reconciliation to facilitate operational improvements for high-volume trading funds. By increasing efficiency and decreasing turnaround time, automation enables firms to redirect resources to higher value client service areas.
Firms that decline to engage in a technology overhaul driven by automation and smart workflows are more likely to fall victim to inevitable human error that accompanies manual processes. This could lead to firms inadvertently exposing themselves to unnecessary risk and the consequence of failure to comply with current regulations.
Many firms struggle with the onus of updating the same data on multiple legacy systems, leading to inefficiencies, manual errors, and potential risk with incorrect data. Automation tools can ensure optimal accuracy and absolute consistency. These solutions include sub-omnibus data, which facilitates the reduction of human error and inconsistency from manual processing.
Counterparty communications, and specifically fund changes, have the potential for significant improvement through the elimination of manual processes. Automated solution platforms can define and normalize fund change data, supported by workflows for both the fund and distributors so all parties can communicate and process those changes in a quick and efficient approach.
SaaS-based data management solutions can automate and simplify a firm’s mutual fund data management, allowing mutual fund operations teams to aggregate and curate data, creating a ‘gold’ copy of audited data that can be confidently deployed across the enterprise.
These solutions offer firms more operational scalability with straight-through processing, automation, and effective data management that allows operations teams to handle their data more efficiently and reallocate resources to more strategically important projects.
Pre-loaded industry data sets reduce integration costs and reduce implementation times, as automation reduces the time firms spend manually poring over data from dozens of broker-dealers and distribution partners.
To grapple with emerging trends, technologies, and products, the mutual fund industry should anticipate more innovative automation and be prepared to efficiently employ it. Contact us to learn how Delta Data’s automated solutions streamline mutual fund processes for improved efficiency of time and resources.