Fund Data Automation Solves Four Common Data Problems Faced by Fund Marketers

A few common phrases we hear from investment marketers are, Our financial data is a bit of a mess and Our data could use a little housekeeping. In our experience, we have learned that marketers have become the de facto experts on fund data management and automation.

Fund marketers themselves are routinely chasing-down their financial data from many disparate sources, both internal and external. Then, they are trying to extract clean data for use in their customer-facing marketing materials. This process is made more challenging when there are tight time frames. Plus, it has to be done with the highest levels of accuracy and consistency in real-time.Read More

September 25, 2020

Emilie Totten

Compliance, Content Automation, Data Management, Disclosure Management, Fund Fact Sheets, Global Marketing Operations, Investment Marketing, Marketing Operations

Print is Dead, Long Live Print!

I’ve been in the computer-driven publishing industry my entire working life. For better or worse, that’s going on 30 years and six firms worth of experience building and selling systems to support the print (or print-like) communications needs of large businesses selling or supporting high-value goods and services. I’ve worked with Airlines, Pharmaceuticals, Auto Parts, Reference Publishers, Military, and Financial business. All have significant data-and-rules driven content publishing needs, including well-designed print artifacts. Supporting publishing in the financial services world makes up a majority of this experience, but we gain wisdom by understanding similarities and differences between multiple business sectors and markets.

For 87.3% of my long and illustrious career in supporting print communications, people have taken the position that Print is Dead… or soon will be. While there are specific examples and versions of this narrative that are true, I’m here to talk today about where and why it is not true!

For Asset Managers, The Profit Is In The Relationship

The economic pressure that has weighed down asset managers recently will continue to mount in 2019. We will especially see this as the tide of market-induced asset growth subsides. The established industry trends are rising passive inflows, fee compression, increased regulation, continuing platform rationalization. These are inescapable, threatening profit margins of the least prepared asset managers. In response, firms are intensifying their efforts to streamline distribution costs, improve their offerings, and invest in relationships. However, many still fall short of differentiating themselves among financial advisors. This could be the ultimate key to sustainable profits in this shifting landscape.

Key Takeaways From Our 2018 Factsheet Production Study

In 2018, we conducted a Mutual Fund Fact Sheet Production Study, where we analyzed 235 factsheets from 47 asset management firms of all shapes and sizes. A few factors observed included publish date, modification date and how the file was produced. The two most observed methods were using automation and producing factsheets manually. To find the firm’s production method, we turned to the metadata to show us what applications, software, or tools they were using to create the PDFs. After digging deeper into the metadata, we identified some key reasons why firms have longer production durations or later release dates. We were also able to make some observations about what drives efficiency, and the findings were pretty shocking. Read on to get the scoop!