[ T H O U G H T L E A D E R S H I P | F U N D G U A R D ]
When FundGuard announced its strategic client partnerships with both Citi and State Street earlier this year , you noted the significance of their participation toward FundGuard ’ s vision for a new era investment accounting utility . Could you expand on that “ utility ” concept ? As an industry , we all have a clear idea of the challenges and generally accept that we need to change . However , getting there will require an entirely new eco-system and a shift in thinking in which middle and back-office processes become a utility , not a differentiator – a truly digital operating model . This genuinely digital operating model requires a ground-up , cloud-native solution , implemented as a utility in which a certain base level of capabilities is standard . This means that managers , custodians and other industry players can differentiate themselves on the quality of their service and product offering , which are revenue generators , and not on their ability to provide back-office processes . Firms further benefit from the learnings and automation that can be applied across the industry , particularly in the context of regulatory requirements and oversight . So , we ' re really excited about these strategic client partnerships . When you have two big partners and other industry leaders collaborating with you to overcome the complexity of the challenge , the odds of success , true systemic change and real innovation increase significantly . Frankly I don ' t know how else you would do it in our industry .
A RELENTLESS DISCOMFORT WITH THE STATUS QUO
Tapping into deep industry experience and backed by major securities services players , the team behind FundGuard has a clear vision on how to help asset managers and fund administrators manage mutual funds , ETFs , hedge funds , insurance products and pension funds into the future . Here , John Lehner , president at FundGuard , the cloud-native , AIpowered SaaS platform for investment management and administration , discusses the fintech ’ s ambitions , strategy and how organisations can move towards ground-up transformation .
In other words , cross-industry collaboration is key to driving this change because it frames the problem at the right size and scale ? Right . There have always been silos of evangelists and technology innovators who try to change the industry from the outside , thinking they will be able to disrupt the status quo and bring fresh views on things , new tools and different approaches . However , what we ' ve learned time and time again is that this disruption from the outside doesn ’ t work because they don ' t come up with a solution at the right size and scale to meaningfully effect change . This is because they don ’ t have the industry experience or partnerships with the right experts and large organisations who understand the complexity of the challenge . On the other hand , you have large legacy organisations on the inside who try and tackle this transformation themselves , and they generally struggle with it . The thing is , each group has only got a piece of the puzzle , and to succeed you need to combine the fresh thinking , agility and technology of the innovators with the deep domain knowledge and experience of the big players . Working together , you can really drive the change necessary for something different to happen and to truly achieve the right balance of reducing cost and risk , while bringing the best breadth of returns and opportunities to the table .
Then what is the roadmap for achieving this existential change and overcoming the blockages created by legacy issues ? Any group is only as fast or as strong as the weakest or slowest component . It is the complexity that is out of sight , deep in the bowels of an organisation that is the oldest , slowest , and the highest risk . This impairs the ability of organisations to move in the direction and speed they need to , to fully digitize and succeed in the long-term . So , organisations must build from the ground up and from the back forward if they are to create truly agile and scalable
38 Global Custodian Fund Services Annual 2022