Executive Summary
- Review of the middle office of an independent, commodity derivatives trading company seeking to identify where to prioritise projects/investment in their Middle Office.
- 5-week review of Middle Office processes to identify process inefficiencies, risks and solution options for potential improvements.
psKINETIC reviewed 20 middle office processes with the SMEs, documented the As-Is process and assessed the impact on the business of not taking action to improve them. To-Be solutions were defined, assessing their applicability across the business and their ease of implementation before reaching a recommendation on next steps.
About the Client
This client is an independent, commodity derivatives trading company with offices in London, Singapore and New York. Founded in 2009, they trade across Asian, European and US OTC derivatives markets with a specific focus on oil and energy hedging out of the London office.
Following two previous successful projects with psKINETIC they requested a review of the middle office.
The Challenges
This client was aware of inefficiencies within their middle office but did not understand the root causes or how they could be improved. The team was reaching maximum capacity and requesting more resources.
Due to this increasing workload, the chance to step back and perform analysis on the efficiency of the processes was always deprioritised in favour of more immediate deadlines and quick fix solutions.
The ability to step out of the processes and look in on them holistically gave psKINETIC a unique vantage point to inspire solutions to the challenges faced in ways that were not always expected within the middle office team.
The Solution
To overcome these challenges, it was agreed that a 5-week review would be undertaken with psKINETIC to get the answers they needed. Workshops and interviews were held at pace in order for psKINETIC to understand and document 20 processes. Problem statements and improvement areas were identified across multiple processes and assessed with technical architects to reach solution concepts that could benefit the client.
Using psKINETIC’s proven scoring model for cost-benefit analysis, process improvements and solutions were pitted against one another to understand relative ‘bang for buck’ based on implementation complexity and solution applicability across multiple process areas.
This scoring model enables psKINETIC to put forward analysis and recommendation’s that the client could review and tweak to ensure scores are accurate and realistic. This approach provides full visibility of the analysis and explainable recommendations that lead to thought-provoking collaboration and more reliable conclusions.
Results
- Analysis and recommendation given to the client after great collaborative discussions about the potential solutions and paths forward.
- A key problem area was data stored in multiple sources and manual copied to drive processed. Recommendation was to extend the use of technology (Azure Data Factory/Power BI) implemented in an early project by psKINETIC to orchestrate data flow and reporting. This maximises the ROI on existing software licensing.
- Good feedback on the analysis with potential for a similar review in a different area of the IT landscape in future. The goal right now is further information gathering across different departments and systems before implementing any solution change.