The changes Covid-19 brought to operational management highlighted new strategies and separated the wheat from the chaff in terms of technological efficiency, said leading market participants.

Clear Path Analysis’s recently released Fund Technology, Data & Operations, Europe 2022 report, saw industry leaders from companies including Northern Trust Asset Management and Broadridge address key concerns related to data management including the availability, quality, and maintenance of data. 

“When the pandemic broke out, we saw that a number of processes were struggling because we had a lot of manual processing."

Included in the report is a roundtable discussion that saw market leaders in fund operating share their strategies on operational infrastructure. Panellists included Arne Martin Moen of Norwegian sustainable investment manager Storebrand Asset Management, who said Covid-19 had proven to be a catalyst and enabler to accelerate the technology agenda.

“When the pandemic broke out, we saw that a number of processes were struggling because we had a lot of manual processing. We built our model to rely on outsourced resources,” he explained. Moen said his company actually reversed their outsourcing strategy amid fears of environmental security as well as new strategies to cope with changes caused by Covid-19.

“We had a long-term strategy in terms of our outsourcing. Making processes more efficient and then gradually bringing those processes back home. During the pandemic we pulled out the plans and put much more focus on insourcing.”

The company had to refocus the skills and talent of its workforce at an already stressful time

According to a 2020 survey by KMPG, 71% of fund managers cited the success of operating in the current remote working environment as a catalyst to further outsourcing more operational and technological solutions. They said this plan would improve efficiency, generate cost savings, and manage margins more effectively.

This change in strategy meant, he added, that the company had to refocus the skills and talent of its workforce at an already stressful time, but that it ultimately improved efficiency. “We have had people focused on being process owners and being able to follow up on the processes but now we also needed to be the actual process operators. Hiring people with operational skills, development and automation skills has become much more important to be able to fast track all these changes,” he added.

Adding value through operational efficiency

The qualities and skillsets that teams needed to have fostered to do more value-added tasks have also changed over the course of the pandemic, particularly due to this emphasis on digital, Moen added.

“We have had a separate unit called Digital Innovation. This unit has been there to help infuse us to become much more digital,” he explains. He adds that the firm is also putting technical and business skillsets in the same team, as this has become very important in Storebrand’s quest to not only build better solutions but also to help at cross-training and knowledge sharing across the entire organisation.

When he has a problem, he starts thinking in terms of how to automate or solve it using technologies

“Empowering the teams to be more autonomous, to prioritise their own tasks within the strategic direction of the company, and the overall strategy in setting specific key objectives, means that teams will be able to develop those skills and be able to learn from each other,” he says.

Moen adds when he has a problem, he starts thinking in terms of how to automate or solve it using technologies and systems, particularly those in-house. “These are the skillsets that we are looking for, which are very different from the past when you had people focusing solely on daily operations, which were their main priority.”

 

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