In my last post, I looked at the common denominators in the growth strategies of global asset managers in 2022. It is now time for a more in-depth look at some of the benefits and pitfalls that the leadership teams need to consider.​

According to a recent report, “Operational efficiency is increasingly important for traditional investment managers as low-cost passive investing increases competitive pressures. For private equity firms, efficient deal sourcing and improving portfolio company operations is a focus area as deal valuations rise. Firms are increasingly turning to digitalisation for operational improvements.”

When discussing business and digital transformation with a Chief Operating Officer, we are interested in understanding which business areas are the prime candidates for change, yielding the most benefits in terms of operational efficiency. It is essential to eke out where the bottlenecks exist from an operational perspective and clearly understand the associated risks to the organisation of not implementing the necessary changes.​

It is accepted that operational efficiencies are achieved by automating business processes. There are, however, significant differences between RPA and Intelligent Automation that I shall detail in the next post. It is helpful to look at results and case studies, but I found that the example cited in the Deloitte report speaks for itself.

Invesco, using intelligent automation, has saved 3 million minutes per year across 35 business functions spanning the front and back office. Implementation of these technologies led to annual cost savings of around US$2.1 million.