One of the biggest challenges faced by asset and wealth managers today is updating marketing collaterals with ever changing compliance and regulatory changes in the industry. According to a 2021 Thomson Reuters survey, 78% of respondents stated that they expected an increase in regulatory information in the coming year. It is hardly the last time we will hear of the new regulations. To keep up with these regulatory changes companies leverage a combination of highly skilled compliance teams and technology.
Risk beyond fiduciary fines
Companies today risk financial and reputational damage by not adhering to these mandated changes. While it may be financially viable for companies to pay the fine however the reputational damage is not so easily corrected. Therefore, companies go the extra mile to make sure to meet their fiduciary obligations. Regulators on the other hand typically give large financial penalties to companies to disincentive violations.
The process of carrying out compliance requirements is evolving and becoming more digital. The role of compliance teams is changing from sampling auditing to creating digital rules that asset and relationship managers can address. As a result, the most successful firms are those that have embraced digitalization by automating their operating models, reducing costs through automation processes, and digitizing their front, middle, and back offices.
Industry challenges with automation
Asset and wealth management is an ever-evolving industry, and many asset managers struggle to adapt to these changes efficiently. Maintaining pace with legislative changes and trying to stay ahead of regulations requires specialised knowledge and a significant investment in time. While at the same time there is a talent war for compliance talent. Skilled compliance manpower though highly sought after are unlikely to prove as effective as technology. There are also now quite a few off the shelf and customized software tools that are helping financial institutions manage their compliance burden.
Recent months have brought back the spotlight to compliance management and challenges faced by companies such as – old operational models, regulatory changes, lack of manpower and inter team co-ordination and increased cost of operations.
Despite the continued interest in and perceived benefits of automation, there appears to have been limited practical success in adopting technology within the asset management space. This is particularly evident when compared to other financial services industries, such as retail banking, investment banking, and insurance. Specifically, we have observed that following points (listed below) help to better address and integrate automation in asset management firms:
- Software integration: The technological solution needs to integrate with existing systems and processes, else they tend to complicate the process flow and increase turnaround time
- Process integration: While in most firms’ automation is done in silos that help solve discrete problems therefore these may not always align to a firm’s overall strategy. The process needs to seamless that helps streamline existing processes and aid in reducing the firms’ go to market strategies (GTM)
- Flexibility and foresight: There need to be enough flexibility in the system to address any additional / new regulatory changes which as we know keeps on changing
While these limitations may not be experienced by all organisations, these do provide meaningful insights into why industry wide adoption of automation technology is comparatively low.
Key content management challenges faced by asset managers
As asset management firms typically manage multiple funds and their respective websites, it becomes ever so dauting and time sensitive task to manage multiple marketing collaterals assigned to it. These need to be published on the client’s website promptly with the latest information each quarter. Given below are two such areas where asset management firms face challenges:
- Document Update & Management – It is a huge task for asset managers to update and manage such large number of marketing collaterals each quarter not only in the document repository but also managing website distribution of these to investors, advisors, and potential investors to make available on website. Managing this process manually risks high error rate and high effort. This is a pain area for asset managers. Automation in this area helps integrate and optimize the compliance system to enabled documents to be posted directly without sending it to the vendor thereby increasing the process efficiency. Using client provided tools we have been able to help reduce time to market their marketing collaterals.
- Website Management – The company’s website is the first interface that investors come across and having any expired content on it can not only provide outdated information but can also cause regulatory issues for the organisation. Asset managers create a lot of marketing content for investors to make an informed decision about their investment and hence, it is important for asset managers to ensure that expired content is removed from the website timely and replaced by new content. However, it is difficult to monitor the whole website and several web pages for expired content on a regular basis. There is a high probability of missing a content on the website which is already expired.
How Evalueserve can help
Content Marketing Services
We provide a wholistic range of service solutions for - content creation, web publication and design services
At Evalueserve our experts across Fund Marketing and Digital Marketing specializing in managing client’s content through content management platforms and compliance workflow tools. While our teams can manage the end-to-end process from data streamlining to updating marketing collaterals to publishing and distributing these across multiple platforms.
Evalueserve's Fund Marketing Solutions for Asset and Wealth Management Firms
Digital Marketing Services
End to end ownership of client digital platforms & website maintenance.
Our highly skilled Digital Marketing team has the required skillset to manage the following:
Content Management: We help asset managers with webpage creation/edits, content tagging, document posting and updating content on their websites. Helping keep their content fresh and current with latest market requirements. This also helps meet their regulatory and compliance obligations.
Funds Data Management: Through our fund data management service, we help conduct a funds data check and help with the launch of new funds. We also assist in XML publishing and help navigate the compliance process for web content pages. Our teams are well versed with JIRA software for day-to-day project management.
Website Audit: Our digital marketing experts help with design enhanced user experience, along with helping in content governance and content relevance quality check. Apart from this the team also assists in checking for mobile friendliness and SEO Check while also managing broken links and images.
Web Monitoring Analysis: The digital marketing team has the required skills to help closely monitor your website through web-analytics and measure the performance using social media analytics. Through this process asset managers can track trend in the marketplace which enable decision makers to make informed strategic decisions regarding their products and target areas for marketing.
Our experience in successfully delivering projects using business process improvement techniques (BPI) have helped clients update and maintain their asset marketing content. Our teams work as an extension of our client’s team updating them about upcoming expiration of content therefore making sure client regulatory obligations are met. Thereby helping them avoid regulatory flags.
