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September 21, 2009
A glance at today’s headlines shows that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in shouting distance of 10,000. The round number isn’t all that important. But the fact that we’re only a few hundred points below the levels of last October, when it appeared that the entire financial system might fail, is significant. It’s a key indicator of economic recovery.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re back to business as usual. Our industry has suffered a major shock, and it’s only natural that people are still taking a cautious approach. I notice daily when I talk to clients and prospects about their content and data management needs: People are extremely cost-conscious, and who can blame them?
That’s why I want to describe several things about SySys that are unique and allow us to keep our clients’ costs down. I also want to remind you of the benefits that are a key part of the equation.
SySys keeps costs under control
Conventional wisdom in the tech industry suggests that scale is always key. You can see this in our competitors who work with clients across a wide range of industries. But at SySys we asked ourselves: What exactly does a conventional supermarket selling groceries, produce, etc. have in common with a mutual fund supermarket? We felt that we’d have to take on significant overhead to adapt our product to other industries and inevitably, some segments would end up subsidizing others.
At SySys, we decided that the financial services industry is big enough to provide appropriate scale. We also reasoned that a combination of focused expertise and carefully controlled overhead would produce the highest quality products and services at the best price.
For example, because SySys has more than fifteen years of dedicated experience in the financial services industry, we’re already far along the learning curve when clients are explaining the problems they are trying to solve. That shortens the analysis and planning stages of our engagements and contributes directly to lower costs.
Doing more with less
“We need to do more with less” is the theme we hear consistently in the marketplace right now. SySys addresses that need with all of the mutual fund-specific functionality built into our FundSys content and data management system.
I’d like to direct your attention to a new section of our website that describes our Information Architecture (IA) approach by clicking here. When you look at the IA milestones, you’ll see that many of the industry-specific concerns of mutual fund companies are easily handled by FundSys.
For example, we know how to manage the complexities of reporting on multiple share classes or communicating to audiences who are served by different distribution channels. And several types and levels of compliance are already built into the product. Those are just a couple of areas where FundSys will make your life easier and allow you to do more with less.
Real world success
Anecdotally, we know our solutions work - because our clients tell us!
Recently, a fund complex came to us because their website was out of control. Nobody knew where to find existing content, and the messaging wasn’t consistent across all their distribution channels. They thought they had a design problem. After going through the IA process, the firm understood they had a design and content/data management problem. They were quite happy when they found out they could address both issues with a single solution.
Another client came to us because their current provider, one of the biggest firms in our space, couldn’t handle their data management requirements. They were doing ok with the content, but couldn’t handle the complexities of mutual funds’ data feeds and reporting requirements without overhauling their own infrastructure. But for SySys, that’s our bread and butter. We have improved things further, creating additional efficiencies, by managing both content and data. That’s how most of our clients engage us. The results are exceptional.
Currently, we are working to develop a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will allow us to measure objectively the benefit our clients receive from FundSys. In some cases the calculations are fairly straightforward. The time saved in automating the publication of, say, 50 quarterly reports, compared to producing them manually, is easy to calculate. But what about the value of having a consistent brand message across all channels? Or the opportunity cost of not being able to post appropriate content in a timely way? We’ll keep you posted and as always, please let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your questions, thoughts and comments. Whatever may come to mind.
Warm regards,
Andrew Christensen
President and CEO, SySys Corporation
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