Guest post by Marianne Hewitt, CEO at The Growth Strategy Group. This article first appeared on cdp.com.

Asset managers must continue to drive down expense ratios and keep an intense focus on growth by leveraging modern technologies and improving operational efficiencies. For asset managers to deploy that technology, they need to invest in the marketing technology (Martech) stack of the future.

The Asset Management MarTech Stack Insights and Trends research, in which I collaborated with Synthesis Technology and Sondhelm Partners, identified operational efficiencies as the largest influence for shaping MarTech Stacks in the next two years. Delivering an effective customer experience and generating business insights were also priorities that will influence the construct of the future MarTech stack.Read More

Insights by John Toepfer, CEO and Chris Ruppenstein, Director of Sales at Synthesis Technology

Today, nearly every segment of the economy is seeing an increase in wage pressures and tighter labor markets. As a result, asset management executives are looking to efficiently allocate resources amongst already capacity-constrained teams and business units. This means manual, time-consuming tasks should and must be automated.

Deloitte’s 2022 Investment Management Outlook report showed 45% of survey respondents see operational efficiency as a top driver for digitization. Similarily, Synthesis Technology’s 2021 Asset Management Martech survey also showed operational efficiency as a top driver in terms of Martech stack changes over the next two years (82%). And while most asset management firms have some automation in place, they still are not investing enough in data management solutions. Only 24% of responding firms reported having a data management solution for product data, and even fewer (13%) reported having an integrated product data management and content automation system.

The lack of efficient data processes negatively impacts managers’ efficiency, bottom line, and competitiveness. For example, taking a month after quarter-end to update and distribute marketing and sales materials is costly, puts marketing and sales teams at a disadvantage, and may lead to investors and prospects looking elsewhere.

Managers also face increasing data governance and compliance scrutiny from the due diligence requirements of potential investors and consultants as well as internal stakeholders.

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It’s tough out there for investment management sales teams and only getting more challenging. Today, pitchbooks must be customer-centric, created or changed on a dime, on-brand, compliant and have digital output and tracking options. That’s like trying to make a delicious, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, and sugar-free wedding cake in 10 minutes.

If that hits home, then this article is for you.

(If you didn’t find that amusing, you’ve clearly never tried to make a cake in 10 minutes.)

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For most asset management firms, data-driven materials like pitchbooks, fund fact sheets, and quarterly commentaries are key business drivers. Yet, those materials are also often the cause of the biggest bottlenecks in the sales and marketing process. That’s why many firms are automating their content production. They know automation means reducing the time it takes to get materials to the sales team and then prospects. In addition, by minimizing the manual effort entailed in creating materials, automation will allow marketing teams to reduce the risk of errors and gain efficiencies that lead to significant long-term cost reductions.

But not all content automation solutions are created equal. If you’ve been contemplating investing in automation, you may be asking: Which solution is the best? The short answer is: the one that removes the most time and risk from your process. Below are some key capabilities to consider when evaluating content automation providers.

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