Digital Transformation is the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology.

Across all industries there has been rapid development of new and emerging technologies helping businesses to digitalise their assets and data flow.  In addition, implementing processes, governance and a continuous roadmap of evolution is critical to driving long term change, scale and ROI.

The Challenge

Following a series of M&A and rapid organic growth a global tier 1 asset manager needed to align its client engagement strategy across multiple touch points and divisions.  The urgency to do this came after the CEO took a client call that informed a disjointed engagement experience from 7 different parts of the business in recent weeks.  The top line challenge was to transform all means of managing client information into a single CRM instance that would drive consistency in sales processes, client engagement and information sharing.

Our Approach

Three cloud-based CRM platforms were considered in addition to mobilising a core global programme team, roadmap and set of workstreams governed centrally by the team.   All driven by a set of clearly defined business outcomes relating to the client lifecycle, rules of client engagement, sales progression, on-boarding, forecasting and measuring effectiveness.    In addition, inclusive in the programme was a commitment to creating a global COE operating model to ensure the solution is scalable, supported, keeps pace with business growth and delivers ROI.

The Outcome

Our team successfully led a global transformation program to implement a single CRM platform and data architecture covering all regions and four separate lines of business impacting 50+ functions and 1,200 senior stakeholders.  The project improved the client experience by unifying all touchpoints creating a single client view and engagement strategy e.g. each multi-national client implemented a strategic account plan enabled and accessed by CRM.

The impacts of the transformation were far reaching including the adoption of Cloud technology, information security compliance/controls and commercially brokering a consistent set of rules for managing the client, sales process, onboarding, financial forecasting and workflow integration with RFP, Product Desks and Client Servicing operations.

In addition, our team led the operating model design and implementation of a newly formed global organisation covering London, New York. Columbus, Mumbai and Hong Kong to manage the CRM platform, business reporting and global sales support.

Summary: Restructuring the services Model for a top tier Asset Manager

Servicing an ever growing global footprint, where clients expect repeatable, consistent and transparent administration services of their Funds all while a downward pressure on margins is the driving feature, this top tier Asset manager looked as to how better to structure their services for  consistent, repeatable processes at a more efficient price point. Harnessing and building expertise that could be shared over multiple teams.

Location Strategy and Change management Case Study

Location Strategy

Location Strategy is more than just moving processes to onshore/offshore locations. It involves looking at how best to service the client, dependant on the services being provided, and utilising the company’s existing or expanded footprint to optimise this. It takes into account co-locatable processes, alignment of central or core services and location as well as regulatory and business continuity best practices. It must be driven by what the key unique competencies are of existing service locations and what is repeatable, structured and requires consistency in its outputs. Pure resource cost arbitrage, is only one element to be considered, but should not be the driver.

Change Management

Moving of core processes is not just lift and drop. Level of maturity of a process, structure and quality of documentation need to be identified prior to moving. Where do the processes sit in terms of criticality of the end output? Systems required to support not just the process but also the management of process and data at arms length. Carry over of controls or adjustment of these, given that they may not be co-located. The skills available for training, oversight, management have to be re-considered as well as people impacts. This is where a thought through change management plan can assist the migration achieve the objectives, all while maintaining a stable platform from which is being built and realising the benefits to the client once migrated.

The Challenge

Move multiple locations, doing similar or various parts of core back and middle office services, into a global centre of excellence, servicing a global footprint. Design for varying cut-off times, delivery times and multiple jurisdictions. Ensure common, repeatable processes across all serviced location for better quality, timeliness and lower cost than existing. Leverage knowledge to improve.

Our Approach

Review of the organisation, to establish support, risk appetite and footprint of co-locatable processes. Commonality of processes and not how it was being done by location currently. Using the principles of Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control, we brought the core common processes together. Ensured they were stable, structured and then trained via different methods to the new teams. Interaction between new and existing teams was key and the approach of extension of the team rather than hand over as a managed service was key.

Once established with KPI’s being met, the new teams were encouraged to review for efficiency of the processes and develop the model further, in conjunction with the locations they serviced. This further rounded out the transfer of knowledge and set up the teams to have trust in each other.

The Outcome

A Global service centre of excellence was created, servicing a follow the sun model with built in business continuity and a continuous improvement approach of processes. This led to further taking on more critical processes as experience was gained. In total 24+ Core processes moved, 1800 head count and servicing 12+ Regional service centres.