Tag Archives: Content Automation Implementation
How to Tackle Investment Data Management and Content Automation Initiatives in Tandem
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.
3 Factors that Complicate Factsheet Automation
When discussing content automation goals, buzzwords like ‘streamlining’, ‘consistency’, and ‘efficiency’ are often tossed around. These are good goals to strive for but are difficult to achieve due to business reasons beyond marketing’s control. After all, the products represent different strategies, ages, data, and audiences; therefore, the literature has to reflect this. In the end, the main goal of content automation should be to make the process as simple as your firm’s business rules and product nuances will allow.
In a recent content automation report, 23% of asset managers cited producing factsheets monthly. So, the accuracy and timeliness of factsheets are becoming more and more crucial. Yet, this does not necessarily mean less complex. The complexity of your factsheets is one of the main driving factors behind the cost of implementing and maintaining an automated solution. In this blog post, we’ll identify and discuss the top 3 factsheet automation complications:
How much does it cost to automate factsheets? 🧐
In a budget-conscious financial services industry, marketing spend is a top concern. That’s why, when we meet new firms looking to invest in automating their factsheet production, one of the first questions marketers ask is, ‘How much will factsheet automation it cost?’. Before digging into their business requirements, our dreaded answer is: It depends. There are many factors to be considered. Firms take many approaches, and one size does NOT fit all.
Among the major dependencies affecting the cost of automating your marketing documents are:
- Complexity of your designs
- Number of templates and variations you have
- Complexity of your data
- Extent of your language requirements
- Amount of flexibility you have with requirements
- Number of documents to be produced
The complexity of your factsheets and flexibility of your firm’s operating model will ultimately determine the cost for automating them during production. To give you a better idea of what this means, let’s look at a few common scenarios. These are actual case studies of companies who have implemented factsheet automation recently with Synthesis and how much it cost them. (more…)
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!