Information Driving ROI

Since I last posted, lots have been happening. Specifically, the sub prime mess has hit, many financial service firms are still not sure how much they’ve lost, credit markets have tightened, and subsequently real estate prices have been affected. What is apparent is that the need for accurate and timely information is paramount.

This brings me to our annual summit, which we hosted several months ago. The Summit is a great opportunity for our clients to share their company’s information challenges and strategy with each other, both in informal conversations and through formal presentations. The overriding theme was that the amount of information a company collects is expanding at an exponential rate and that companies have to successfully harness it to maintain and improve operating efficiencies, profit margins, and competitive positioning. (scale, grow, and manage risk).

The discussions were very exciting and focused on the many ways in which clients are using Request to improve business processes. Here’s what we heard:

- Increasing the data set that resides in our warehouse;
- Providing third party data contributors with the means to populate Request directly;
- Providing third party information consumers ways of directly accessing Request;
- Streamlining other process solutions to reside within Request so that they are made more efficient and to bring more eyes more often to Request…reinforcing the goal of Request being the single source of the truth and the one place to go to get all information on investment and portfolio level data.

Two specific examples that were focused on reflect the above thinking:

- A client’s 3rd party property managers contribute key information to the owner’s annual asset plans. The property manager’s information is delivered through excel spreadsheets and word documents. Before this information gets keyed into the asset plan, their write ups must be approved by both the asset and portfolio manager. This results in a lot of back and forth communication between all 3 parties. This time consuming and cumbersome process was streamlined by our client creating input forms for the third party property manager to fill out that then go through a work flow/ sign off process and then get automatically integrated into the asset plans. The benefits are many: no reentering of data, the visibility to see at any one point, what’s been approved and at what stage, the introduction of a consistent process throughout all property, asset, and portfolio managers, and overall…time savings.

- Another client has integrated SharePoint into the Request dashboard. The client uses SharePoint for document management and asset specific content. This information can now be accessed from the Request, with the goal of making Request the one stop shop for asset, portfolio, and investment level information.

This is all driven by the value of information. I was talking to a manager of a large open-ended fund, who stated that one specific report that Request provides could save him a million dollars. Now this is what I call ROI!