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Dear Operations Professional,
Below is an executive summary of the National
Investment Company Service Association (NICSA)'s recent Technology
Forum 2005. The summary is brought to you by Operations
Management and NICSA. Operations Management is
pleased to provide this value-added service to both our subscribers and
to NICSA's members. I invite those of you not familiar with Operations
Management to take a free trial on my behalf by clicking on the
link below so you can see for yourself the vital news on securities
processing and technology covered by our newsletter.
Sincerely,
Aaron Finkel
Publisher, Operations Management
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C- Level Roundtable: What We Need From Our IT
Organizations
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Moderator: Steven
Miyao, Chief Executive Officer, kasina
William Bridy, President
Financial Data Services, Merrill Lynch
Don Roberson, Sr. Vice
President, National and Regional Broker Dealer Division, Lincoln
Financial Distributors
Paul O'Neil, Senior Director,
Boston Financial Data Services
Stephen Ward, Chief Investment Officer,
Schwab Funds, Charles Schwab Investment
Management
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| Those who attended the C-Level Rountable learned that:
Fund management executives are grappling with the
burdens of several new regulations.
Large firms will have to rely on automated
solutions to ensure compliance with the rules.
Market participants are not only required to
comply, but they need to be able to demonstrate to the regulatory
bodies that they have complied with the regulations.
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The Overworked, Under- Trained and Stressed
IT Staff
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Moderator: Roger
A. Michelson, Senior Vice President, PFPC -
Automated Business Development
Leslie D. Ball, Senior
Executive Professor, College of Business Administration,
Northeastern University
Lauren L. Mackler, CEO,
Lauren Mackler & Associates
Donna Sinnery, VP of
Worldwide Staffing, State Street Corporation
Tom Woislaw, Senior Vice
President & Managing Director, PFPC
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| According to the panelists at this session: Retaining
staffers during times of stress requires managers to communicate openly
and honestly about a merger, acquisition and plans for staff
reductions.
While communication may sound unimportant, or an
insufficient solution, in times of change it works well.
Informed employees will not rely on gossip
because they have a clear picture of the direction of their company.
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Technology for the Business User
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Moderator: Kevan
Keegan
Senraj Soundararajan, President
& Chief Systems Architect, Ivesia Solutions, Inc.
Mark Horvath, Engineering
Director, Worldwide Financial Services, Microsoft
Zane Teslik, Partner,
IBM Business Consulting Services
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| The panelists pointed out that: Service-oriented
architecture (also known as web services) will eventually make back-end
systems almost completely "plug and play," giving your business greater
flexibility.
Inductive User Interface solves the problems of
user confusion that existed with traditional, less intuitive
interfaces.
Good information security relies only 10% on
technology and 90% on people, processes and training.
Connected systems can move you closer to a
paperless office and improve ease of use by moving complicated
technologies away from the user.
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How Technology Impacts a Relationship
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Michael Bellopede, Head of
Technology Products and Solutions, SEI Investments
Rick Gardinier, Sr. Vice
President, Managing Director, Blattner Brunner/bbdigital
Mike Ma, Vice President of
Business Development, kasina
Michael Love, Sales Engineer,
WebTrends
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| The main points discussed were: There's
high demand from financial advisors for technology-delivered content
and services.
Usability is the number one barrier to technology
use by customers.
Technologically executed segmentation - by
behavior and profit rather than by channel and sales - will be key to
personalizing online marketing to your customer.
Measure what works and what doesn't by applying
web analytics to customers' online behavior.
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Technology Outfitting of the Trading Desk / A
Day in the Life of a Trade
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Moderator: Andy
Luro, Managing Consultant, Venture Financial Systems
Group, Ltd.
Andrew Sommers, Senior Vice
President Director of Applications, Putnam Investments
Mark Clark, Executive Vice
President Direct Market Access Products, SunGard/BRASS
Richard S. Enfield, CPA, Director,
Product Management, Charles River Development
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| The main points discussed were: Key
technology issues for trading include: connectivity to market,
intelligent trade automation, algorithmic trading, trade regulations,
integration (with portfolio management, compliance and risk management)
and market data access.
Some key challenges for trading include measuring
effectiveness of implementation on the equity side and copying with
rising use of credit derivatives on the fixed income side.
Changes in global regulations, such as Regulation
NMS, are impacting the trading process.
Pressure on broker-dealers is driving their focus
on automated and rules based trading, enhancing personal relationships
with electronic client relationships, and creating new equities trading
models.
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The Road Ahead: Forces Shaping the Future
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| Keynote
Speaker: Andrew Zolli |
| Zolli stressed the following: Key
demographic trends involve youth bulge in developing world, graying of
Europe, and U.S. moving to having fewer working age adults than
children or retirees.
Ambient technology, which involves embedding
technology in physical items (like RFID), is a key new technology.
New medicines will be customized to individuals
and will significantly extend human lives.
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The Customer Advocacy Imperative
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Ron Shevlin, Vice President,
Forrester Research Inc.
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| Shevlin outlined these major topics: Investors
are not loyal to their financial services providers because they
believe that investment firms can't be trusted and they want to be more
involved in managing their investments.
Customer advocacy - the perception that the firm
is doing what's best for customers, not just for the bottom line (at
customers' expense) - is a key to increasing customer loyalty and
future purchases.
Information technology can help your organization
become an effective customer advocate by 1) implementing collaborative
financial planning, 2) reinventing broker workstations as relationship
platforms instead of trading platforms, 3) building very good advisor
websites, 4) pulling together steps 1-3.
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Chief Information Officers' Roundtable
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Moderator: Kerry
Massaro, Editor in Chief, Wall Street &
Technology
Gary Hegedus, Executive
Vice President and Chief Information Officer, BISYS
John Killeen, Chief
Technology Officer, First Vice President, Global Private Client
Technology, Merrill Lynch
Mike Rizzo, Chief
Information Officer, Boston Financial
Ra'ad Siraj, Chief
Information Officer, Eaton Vance Management
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| The CIOs discussed themes including: CIOs
are responding to demands that outstrip their capacity and mostly flat
budgets by setting priorities with business partners, outsourcing tasks
that they don't do well (as long as they don't endanger client
privacy), and trying to squeeze more efficiencies out of their
organizations.
CIOs are developing trusting relationships with
their business partners by working together at all levels, hiring
business analysts and client relationship managers, and generally
becoming more knowledgeable about business goals.
To get financial advisors to adopt new
technology, it must be easy-to-use, intuitive, and offer an obvious
benefit to them.
Compliance has become a major concern that
consumes more of a CIO's budget and resources.
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