[ S U R V E Y | E X E C U T I O N M A N A G E M E N T S Y S T E M S ]
With the basics covered ,
it ’ s all about innovation in
the EMS space
While providers gained the highest overall average marks in history in The TRADE ’ s 2020 Execution Management Systems Survey , declines in product development scores suggest the buy-side want more from their vendors when it comes to innovation .
The 2019 edition of The
TRADE ’ s Execution Management Systems ( EMS ) survey highlighted the definite shift in industry focus , away from concerns over compliance and towards
execution quality . The results from this year ’ s survey compounds the sense that both EMS vendors and users are now mostly focused on improving the quality of execution . For the most part , scores have continued to rise , however there are certainly areas of service where vendors can do better and are in danger of falling behind .
“ Providers that are able to offer innovation will likely find themselves with a competitive advantage .”
Figure 1 shows scores recorded over the past two years , across 13 functional EMS categories under review by buy-side respondents .
Overall , scores were broadly up from 2019 , with all categories under scrutiny scoring above the default ‘ Good ’ score of 5.00 . There were only two categories in which the 2020 average fell below its 2019 level : FIX capabilities ( down 0.06 ) and product development ( down 0.03 ). For all other categories however , average scores were up from 2019 , albeit marginal . One exception is in the ease-of-use category , which increased by 0.18 from last year , indicating an increase in the usability of EMS providers across the board this year .
As in 2019 , two categories recorded an average score of more than 6.00 ( Very Good ), representing particularly high performance . The
66 // TheTRADE // Fall 2020