Reformis Expertise

As business strategies diversify, investment strategies become more sophisticated and the regulatory landscape changes. Reformis’ front office implementation service is here to guide you through the available investment technologies and operating models.

Reformis have over a decade of experience, selecting, integrating and implementing trading platforms for portfolio managers, traders, compliance, and middle and back offices. Our consultants have experience implementing all the major investment management platforms, including; Blackrock Aladdin, Simcorp Dimension, Charles River and Latent Zero.

Our team of consultants know that successful front office implementation hinges on:

• Workflow – that the functional fit of the platform to your business is sound.
• Data – ensuring the platform is integrated into a data environment that is both well governed and properly managed, so that your business has confidence in the numbers.
  
  

Seeing your business transformation through from concept to implementation

Reformis have experienced consultants able to fulfil the roles necessary to see your business transformation through from concept to implementation, including:

• Programme and Project Managers
• Specialist System Integrators
• Business Analysts
• Data Analysts
• Testing Managers
• Technical Resources

All of our consultants are Investment Management specialists; know the industry, the business, the functions and the data. As a team, we possess all you need to take your business to the next level.

We are experts in data management and data governance for the Finance sector

Our consultants are specialists in market-leading financial data management technologies, can advise you on the type of solution your organisation needs and take a hands-on approach to implement them into your business.

Reformis have relationships with many of the vendors in the data management and data governance space. However, we don’t sell software and remain agnostic from any of our relationships and our loyalties lie solely with our clients.

How does our investment management data management consultancy work?

To ensure that our data management insights & recommendations are effective for your business requirements, we follow a process that allows us to fully understand both where you are and where you need to be.

Our process follows these key steps:

1) Advisory
Your business begins its transformation with a review of your overall technological architecture. We explore and take into account your current:

• Data sources
• Market data providers
• Internal resources
• Assets under management (AUM)
• Data governance council and practices – if you do not have a data governance council in place, we will help create one
• Your company culture

We then make two types of recommendations based on your organisation’s requirements.

1. Process Changes – to enhance and future-proof your current workflow to increase efficiency
2. Technology Changes – to capitalise on current in-house applications or purchase alternative products to enhance your organisation’s capabilities

2) Vendor Selection
If your organisation requires technology additions, we will guide you through the vendor selection process.

1. Recommend the most suitable vendors to request information from and run the Request for Proposals (RFPs).
2. Assist in shortlisting the vendors for product demos.
3. Working alongside you, document the positives and negatives of each viable solution.
4. Recommend the solution that best fits your organizations needs and future target operating model.
5. Assist with contract negotiations.

3) Implementation
Reformis have successfully delivered over 150 investment management vendor implementations worldwide. During the implementation process, your organisation may require resources to ensure a seamless transition. We work alongside you to decide on the optimal structure of the project team; whether you need an entire project team or just parts of one, we can fill that gap. These project roles include:

• Programme & Project Managers
• Data Architects
• Business Analysts
• Data Analysts
• Testing Managers
• Technical Resources & Developers

Our technical resources are aligned to market-leading technologies in the financial data management space and our consultants are experts in configuring and implementing these technologies. All of our resources are technically strong and their business knowledge is unparalleled in investment management, data quality management, data analysis and business analysis.

Our industry experts will also train your team to develop within the product framework so that when we walk away, they can successfully stand on their own.
 

4) Data Governance Council Guidance and Set Up
By working with Reformis, you will be fully supported whether your organisation has a data governance council or not. We provide the following:

• Guidance on what data governance means within your organisation and what the maturity process of a good data governance programme looks like
• Guidance during data governance meetings and additional assistance until your organisation can run its own
• Recommendations on how to fine-tune your organisation’s existing data governance council processes
• Assistance with implementing data lineage to empower your organisation’s understanding of its data, data transformations and data distribution

The steps above are the pillars of your progress. Our team work closely with you at all times to guide you in the right direction. Our vast experience allows us to understand the opportunities unique to your organisation and make structured recommendations to support your needs.

What are the benefits of data management consultancy to investment managers?
Any investment manager (traditional AMs, hedge funds, private wealth, pension funds) can benefit from data management consultancy.
Clients that do not have a data management or data governance function in place will see a host of benefits, including:

• Reduced costs of data
• Removal of data redundancies
• More efficient data processes and workflows
• Reduced overhead costs
• Frees up resources to focus on more strategic initiatives
• Improved data quality

Clients that already have a data management and/or data governance function will also benefit from the wealth of collective knowledge Reformis has as a consultancy who has worked in the space for over 17 years.
 

Why Reformis?
We bring our experience of implementing data management and data governance solutions to every project. We have seen what works, what doesn’t work and have adapted with the technology changes that have taken place over the years. All of our consultants not only have a technical skillset, but they have a deep level of understanding of investment management. They are all highly skilled and knowledgeable in this subject area.

When advising our clients on data management and data governance, our guidance is based on our hands-on experience in delivering solutions for our clients. We want a solution that is right for you, that aims to design a target architecture that works for now, as well as laying a strong foundation to build upon in the future.

We consider what is best for each client on an individual basis, taking into account a number of factors, including:

• How large is the organisation?
• How many resources are available to work as data stewards?
• What is the current data architecture?
• What asset classes are you trading today and what will you be trading in the next 6-18 months?
• What is the current AUM?
• What is the culture of the organisation?

Reformis has successfully delivered solutions to the investment management sector to meet requirements for accurate and efficient internal, regulatory and client reporting.

Clients can benefit from both fixed-format reporting solutions to meet a specific, regular requirement for data, as well as ad-hoc reporting and data mining requirements, generally served by data warehousing and business intelligence initiatives. Our experience in this field enables us to guide our clients from business case, through solution selection, to implementation.

To deliver a successful reporting solution efficiently requires a clear understanding of the business and its data. Reformis’ buy-side focused technical consultants are investment management specialists with the ability to visualise the processes, data and technologies necessary to meet your requirement.

Reformis consultants have helped our clients to:

• Build efficient reporting systems to meet regulatory requirements within very challenging timescales
• Implement efficient client reporting systems owned by the business, not IT
• Analyse and improve processes for internal reporting of AuM and new business figures
• Implement large scale data warehousing and business intelligence platforms, transforming businesses

Our success comes not only from our deep domain knowledge and strong analytical skills, but also our efficient project management, crucial in meeting complicated investment management reporting and regulatory reporting requirements against fixed timelines.