How Connected Technology Can Connect You to Growth in the Private Markets

After participating in our Connect client conference events this year, it dawned on me how relevant the name “Connect” has become for FIS and our clients. On one hand, fund managers are looking for smarter ways to connect their operational systems to work as an efficient foundation for launching or scaling their strategies, and on the other, FIS has been investing heavily in building stronger integrations between our solutions for clients in the private markets. Now, we are better equipped than ever to connect our integrated, next generation technology solutions to our clients’ evolving needs.

At FIS, our solutions are connecting each step that our clients take into the digital age and helping to create an unparalleled path toward operational efficiencies that all stakeholders in the fund life cycle strive to achieve. And as our clients look to fortify their position in an ever-crowding space, they are recognizing the need to evolve with solutions that can mitigate challenges in servicing ever-changing partnership agreements.

But, why does it often feel so challenging to connect to the next level of growth?

One of the challenges facing a manager or investor in more hybrid-focused strategies, which may include a mixture of liquid and illiquid assets or evergreen fund structures, is that firms have become “people-hungry.”

Highly skilled resources are at a premium. Talent acquisition and repeated training cycles caused by turnover cause rippling effects throughout the process. Across the industry, we see funds looking to stay lean while cultivating their base, as they look to institutionalize and grow. And we all know that no one can afford to end up on the front cover of a major newspaper for missing a regulatory or compliance mandate due to staffing shortfalls.

Does this sound familiar? There is a time suck happening in an environment when fund managers are looking to provide investors with the added levels of transparency requested not only within an investor’s capital account, but also at the portfolio level. While providing greater transparency is crucial, should this be a major focus of your team’s time? You must have the capacity to allow the investor to have confidence in both your investment returns as well as operational capabilities – without having the process consume your people. Manual processes, disconnected data and a sheer increase in volumes absolutely eat away at the time your staff could be spending on generating alpha.

How can you best satisfy your investors’ need for more data and transparency without feeding your people to a hungry operation?

You can ease people-hungry operations with a truly integrated platform of solutions that can reduce overhead and erase inefficiencies caused by tactical growth plans and operating models that are not keeping up with your business. To position your business for growth today and into the future, your fund should be empowered by a suite of connected solutions that can handle:

• Trade capture and order management
• Investor allocations using automation, core partnership accounting and reporting
• A portal for investor contact management, self-servicing and document sharing
• Dynamic analytics that give you greater ability to understand the underlying data to make informed investment decisions

To reinvent your operations to empower your growth, you must have a trusted partner – not simply a vendor or a list of vendors – to advise and allow you to scale across all disciplines. Having a connected technology approach that automates what was manual and speeds up what was a time suck can ease the pressure on your staff and help to refocus their energy on what matters most for your business: maximizing returns.

With FIS’ Private Markets Suite, we have opened opportunities for fund managers to provide investors a level of detail in reporting like never before – and is simply not possible without seamlessly integrating best-of-breed solutions. Our clients, who we connect with as partners, are now empowered with the ability to extend staff capabilities and allow their people to focus the bulk of their time on high-value activities. Perhaps the days of people-hungry fund operations are coming to an end.

Want to explore FIS’ Private Markets Suite and the ways FIS can help put your people-hungry operations on a diet? Connect with our team to learn more.