Blog

I sometimes find that people think we provide a “managed service”. With a managed service the reporting firm uses your data and produces all your reports for you, often handing back the finished product for your teams to check and send to your clients and investors....

ESG regulation. Two words that provoke strong emotions for most people within the asset and wealth management industry. These are often emotions like frustration and confusion as well as nervousness around scope, requirements and workload. And, perhaps with good...

ESG investing is often thought of as a recent phenomenon, but it has been around for centuries with religious groups such as the Quakers and Methodists using forms of negative screening back in the 17th and 18th centuries. More recently in the 2000s, climate change,...

When it comes to ESG client reporting there is often a significant focus on what data should be reported and how to automate it – and with good reason! No clear guidance currently exists on what to include in an ESG client report and many tech solutions are often not...

This certification independently recognises Opus Nebula’s information security standards and commitment to quality. At Opus Nebula, the security of information and our commitment to quality is central to the reporting service we provide. It’s vital to everything we...

In this month’s blog, we make a comparison between Reporting as a Service and choosing to live in a van.  What...?!?  It’s actually a lot more clear than you think.Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a growing trend where some, who have had the opportunity to do so,...

Usually, when we’re extolling the virtues of Reporting as a Service we list the tangible benefits it represents.  We talk about automation of process and the efficiency gain it produces - around 500%.  We also talk about cost reduction - around 50% when compared to...

As I write the first sentence of this blog post, I suspect one of main the problems with naming the next big thing is that writing it down means it’s already not.  It’s here, happening now, unavoidably linked to a specific point in time, and will likely cease to be...

As I write this, we’ve just passed May 17th and UK restaurants are once again serving diners indoors.  A milestone has been reached and we have another socialising option back on the menu so this weekend I will probably eschew one of the big delivery services, plonk...

Despite the image I’ve used to draw your attention, this is not an attempt to make you picture me as a superhero in a cape or a warrior in gladiatorial armour but it’s relevance will become clear as I explore the need for better storytelling in client communications. ...

Not so long ago, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) themes appeared to generate little interest in the investment community. No more. Investors are now analysing ESG criteria equally amongst other metrics to assess companies and funds prior to investing. ...

A month ago I wrote about the pressures that were building in our industry.  I talked about the increasing reporting expectations of clients, the pressure to modernise and replace old legacy systems, pressures on costs, and of course the impact of Covid-19. All of...

As 2021 kicked off, a lot of conversations seemed to be peppered with hopes that the next twelve months would be better than the last and that the calendar change might signify some kind of return to ‘normal’. It got me thinking. I wondered why - given that time is...

Welcome to our final blog of the year. As 2020 draws to a close we thought it would be useful to look back over our year of publications, e-book and blogs and seek to highlight and link the key points made, summarise the messages and draw some conclusions.The year...

The Type 1 - more commonly known as a VW Beetle - made its public debut at the Berlin motor show in 1939. Over its 65-year life span around 21.5 million models rolled off production lines around the world making it the most popular and perhaps most cherished car ever....

Total Cost of Ownership “TCO” – the clock is already running. Acquisition costs are actually incurred from the moment you decide something needs to be done. Like many other costs related to software and hardware purchasing decisions, acquisition costs tend to be...

“Winning doesn’t matter, it’s the taking part that counts.” A phrase that’s echoed around the world on school sports days and uttered by countless consolatory parents to soothe the heartbreak of competitive defeat. Do we believe it? Really? We’ve been trying to outdo...

As we wrote in our Untrue Efficiency paper earlier this year (get it here) increased #efficiency provides more time, and more time gives you more head space to think. That being the case, what do you spend your time thinking about? When we found ourselves with a...

However you want to say it, it appears to be true and evident across many areas of our lives as a result of the global pandemic. Some examples of innovation include, where distilleries switch to manufacture hand sanitiser rather than gin, we see companies and...

Efficiency, or rather “Untrue Efficiency” – we’ve been talking about it a lot. We wrote a paper that introduced it in January (you can read that here) and have been exploring its themes in more detail since. But then, Covid-19 arrived on our shores and for a fleeting...

Many of us have been working from home for a while now and are getting used to operating “business as usual” from home. However, have you tried to change something in your reports? Perhaps responding to a client request or a new standard that’s been agreed internally....

Simplifying your operating model and improving your client report production process is crucial to providing an outstanding experience to all your clients. In this blog post, I have identified 5 specific areas that can be simplified; On-boarding Many investment firms...

Is your firm operationally efficient? Well, we think, with a high degree of confidence that it’s definitely not and to understand why, you only need to acknowledge what efficiency, or ‘being efficient’ actually means. Once you’ve done that, you just need to work out...

At this year’s digital TSAM London event there were many presentations which provided valuable industry insight from a range of exceptional speakers, but in this blog I wanted to discuss one session in particular which really piqued my interest. The panel included...

Given the wide range of functions carried out by asset management and wealth management firms, and the complexity of these functions, it is all too easy to get distracted and lose focus or focus on the wrong things. During these turbulent times there may have been a...

Citisoft recently published Outlook 2020, the latest addition of their annual outlook paper, but instead of looking to the immediate horizon as they have previously, this year they are looking ahead to the next 10 years for the asset management landscape. This change...

Ten years ago, there was considerable reluctance within the financial services industry to adopt the “cloud” as a technology. However, ten years later the cloud industry has demonstrated to the somewhat sceptical and cautious financial services industry that the cloud...

Many people are working from home 5 days a week for the first time as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s been many useful and insightful tips across social media of how people can remain effective whilst working from home. Most have been interesting, some...

If the goal of an organisation is to maximise profit it needs to be efficient. Many firms think they already are but in reality, efficiency isn’t a characteristic they possess. Only those who have removed inefficiencies completely can truly claim to be so....

Producing factsheets manually in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint always has its challenges. Typically, these include; Template Management This is very complex to manage and often results in branding, layout and content differences between funds and regions/languages....

One of the most crucial aspects of any reporting project is the data; the identification of the golden source, the format and content of the data files, and how the data should be transferred to the reporting system. However, daunting as it is, there is a simple...

For some time, industry commentators have been focussing on “industry change” and attempting to predict its consequences. Whilst some have concentrated on potential failure - suggesting slow-to-act firms will collapse without significant change, others have...

Now we have entered a new decade is it finally time to update your fund reporting solution and leave your legacy system in the past? One of the reasons firms contact us is because they have reached the manageable limit of their report production process but still need...

Project Management as a field of study teems with references to risk. The most common categories being Cost - its escalation due to scope creep, Time - because activities might take longer than initially planned for, and Scope - as the project may fail to deliver its...

Many investment firms are finding that they are spending more and more time and effort producing client reports, taking time away from client service. This is because the deadlines are getting shorter, the clients’ reporting requirements are getting more demanding and...

Client reporting and your client’s response and reaction to it (if captured) creates valuable information that can then be used to improve and enhance your client reporting - the classic chicken and egg situation. Should data projects be prioritised over client...

There’s some confusion about how our cloud-based client reporting service works, and how users (reporting teams within investment firms) interact with the system to produce reports so this short blog has been written to address some of the more frequently asked...

A few people I’ve spoken to recently were a little confused about Reporting as a Service. They thought that Reporting as a Service was to outsource the production of your client and fund reports, using a separate and third-party team of people to gather the data,...

In the last two blogs, I’ve explained why communications and reporting is so important for your business and discussed some of the elements that are required to ensure your report production process is fit for purpose. You can read those blog posts here and here. In...

In my last blog, I explained the importance of client interaction and how it’s directly linked to your reputation and feeds growth and profit. I also pointed out that in an industry such as investment management, where services are often intangible, any type of...

Over the last decade or so, industry has realised that nothing has greater impact on a firm’s reputation, growth and profit than the way it interacts with its clients. Subsequently, and alongside the multiplication of available communication channels, client...

When someone hears the term “reporting governance” they tend to immediately think of the FCA and the various standards and COBS (Conduct of Business Sourcebook) that shape and direct their internal reporting procedures. However, there are other forms of reporting...

When you are responsible for producing reports to inform your clients and investors, it is important they are complete and accurate, and they have been prepared in accordance with agreed standards and content, and once agreed, are sent to the correct recipients. Being...

Much has been written and continues to be written about the relentless pressure on fees, revenues and therefore profits for investment firms. In simple terms it’s profits that drive shareholder value, and there are only two primary levers that drive profits: revenues...

Many investment firms’ operations and systems are complex and so is their client reporting. This can be for a number of reasons and is often due to systems that were inherited or have been part of the business for years. Trying to simplify this situation can be...

As the provider of Reporting as a Service (RaaS) a cloud-based client and fund reporting solution, we meet and talk to a lot of investment firms about their reporting and broader client communications. Always on the agenda is: what they’re doing now and what they...

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet. SaaS is one of three main categories of cloud computing, alongside Infrastructure as a Service...

Reporting as a Service lets you provide the ultimate in client reports and fund factsheets with our cloud-based platform that automates the reporting process and transforms the way reports are produced and distributed.

As you might expect there are many different aspects to how the future of client reporting will evolve and how to future-proof your own reporting system. Hence this blog is split into multiple parts, each part looking at a different element of the future model. This...

As you might expect there are many different aspects to how the future of client reporting will evolve, especially when it comes to data and information. Hence this blog is split into multiple parts, each part looking at a different element of the future model.This is...

As you might expect there are many different aspects to how the future of client reporting will evolve, one of them being self-service reporting. Hence this blog is split into multiple parts, each part looking at a different element of the future model.This is the...

There are many influences affecting how the future of client reporting may evolve. Hence, this blog is split into multiple parts, each part looking at one aspect of the future model.So before considering the future of client reporting, one needs to initially consider...

Fund factsheets; they are everywhere but are they good enough? Firms that manage and promote funds, OEICs, Investment Trusts, ETFs, NURS etc., all need fund factsheets to market, promote and provide basic information to investors and potential investors but are they...

All investment firms need a flexible client reporting system, so that they can accommodate the various reporting requirements of all their clients. A hot topic for these firms is flexibility when producing fund factsheets. Ideally, and a growing trend, is that fund...

A friend recently told me that he thought that often “economies of scale – don’t scale”. Which is an interesting conundrum. He contended that “management overhead” and “additional layers of hierarchy” are introduced into a typical operating model as the organisation...

The best New Year's resolutions are the ones you think deeply about, once set, you keep forever and ideally the resolutions make things better too, either for you or for others. Those resolutions from previous years that were ill-conceived, short-lived, or didn’t...

Where does your expert reporting knowledge reside – a few people in the reporting team or in a system?The specialist knowledge of your clients and their specific reporting requirements are built up over time and often reside within a few key individuals within the...

The premise of this short blog is to explore the common myth that the client (internal or external) is always right. The client’s understanding and perspective of a problem to be resolved doesn’t mean that they have the right answer. This can be especially true when...

A quick piece of web research will highlight that the strategic answer offered by fund managers of investment management firms is “we provide fiduciary services”, “we manage money and risk for our clients”, for investment advisors it would be “we offer investment...

A vendor withdrawing a reporting system presents the “user” firm with a number of challenges. Typically, these include: Forced project work and change activity Unexpected additional costs Delays to other planned project work while the reporting replacement project is...