Four Areas Where Business Information Services Could Be More Efficient

SLA Europe DigiComms

Nitin Garg, the Global Head of Investment Banking Practice at Evalueserve, offers advice on how business information services can be more efficient and effective.

4 Areas Where Business Information Services Could Be More Efficient

In our modern, data-driven business environment, banks and other professional services firms place a premium on efficient, smooth, reliable information management. Of course, they want cost-effective solutions too. In-house and external business information services (BIS) face a number of obstacles when trying to meet the demands of the industry. Luckily, the evolution of new technology focused on data stewardship is making it easier to take on those challenges.

Just what do BIS have to take into account when it comes to interacting with the financial and professional services industries? The basic answer is what you might imagine: they need to optimize their cost and workflow. But taking a closer look reveals some interesting details.

Data costs

Optimizing spending on market databases means tracking their use to ensure that what you’ve subscribed to is actually useful, and looking at other sources to make sure that you’re not missing the opportunity to spend less elsewhere. In addition, companies are finding that centralized knowledge management helps them manage costs, since they can avoid duplicate spending and re-use useful content. Modern applications make it easy to track usage and give valuable information that centralized data management teams can use to make informed decision.

End-user experience

Don’t underestimate the importance of the end-user experience when it comes to increasing productivity. The modern end user in a BIS is a young professional that spends a large portion of their time using smart devices and applications. They expect the same intelligence from the tools of their trade. New dashboards and interfaces take this into account, ensuring that end users are satisfied and thus more likely to be productive.

The seasonality of the workflow

Particularly in financial services companies such as investment banks, the annual cycle with its peaks and troughs has to be kept in mind. A good BIS takes into account how the annual cycle plays out and uses new market monitoring tools to keep abreast of changes in that cycle.

The importance of automation

We mentioned this already when speaking about researcher costs, but it bears repetition. According to McKinsey’s latest report on workplace automation, Four Fundamentals of Workplace Automation, a staggering 45% of BIS activities could be automated using already proven and available technology. If cutting-edge natural language processing and artificial intelligence technologies are considered, a further 13% of activities could be automated. It’s clearly time for BIS teams to embrace automation, divest themselves of routine, repetitive and time-consuming tasks and boost their productivity.

Why wait? The tools are available now

The key thing to remember is these solutions for data usage monitoring, automation of routine tasks and market research already exist. For example, Evalueserve has already designed and implemented a proprietary workflow tool for BIS workflow management. It captures all the relevant input from bankers when they submit their data request, so there’s no need to contact them again to get clarification. It has smart dashboards that help the workflow manager oversee the task queue. Its built-in capability to track database use and generate customized analytical reports provides invaluable information to data managers. According to one of our clients, a major bank, using the tool reduced their turnaround time on data requests by almost 15%. In addition, it has saved them almost US$50 thousand in their first year of use.

We’ve also seen demonstrable advantages with automation. An excellent example of a necessary but time-consuming task with only limited immediate value is the downloading of company filings for publicly listed companies. Such information is available on various public websites such as the SEC and stock exchange. Every time a junior banker or researcher has to update their universe of company filings, they spend a considerable amount of time visiting all the relevant sites. Our automation and financial services experts came together to create a solution that can automatically download, sort and save relevant company filings for multiple companies in just a few seconds. We’ve prepared a short demo to show how it works: http://goo.gl/FYe0yV

Automation and modern tools will never fulfil all the needs of a business information service, but the right balance of technology and human expertise can overcome even the most complex challenges. It’s up to each BIS to assess which solutions are best for them and their clients but one thing is certain: no company in the financial and professional services can afford to be old-fashioned about their data stewardship.

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Evalueserve is a global professional services provider offering research, analytics, and data management services. We are powered by mind+machine – a unique combination of human expertise and best-in-class technologies that use smart algorithms to simplify key tasks.

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