I know it doesn't sound too exciting but "time series data" is the answer whenever someone asks what will be the main factor that determines how long onboarding new investment aggregation infrastructure will take.
Big or small, family offices should be maintaining accurate and easily accessible records of every transaction, corporate action, distribution, brokerage and anything that can affect the tracking of performance of the any asset. Use Excel or a basic could platform if you have to, but have a process of recoding and reconciling.
The reason I'm making this point? One of the biggest switching costs of moving suppliers is the upload of new data and the backfill of past data. If you're on the cusp of moving from Excel to a more sophisticated aggregation platform as an example, the frustration risk will nearly always be determined by how long it takes to get the new data into the platform and to reconcile that against statements.
If you're like some clients this will be a relatively straight forward process - either because they have kept incredible good internal records, or more often that not they have had to go through this process already.
This is also true for counterparties such as brokers and asset managers - one aspect that can derail an onboarding process is for the counterparty to be unable (or unwilling) to provide accurate transaction data across the life of the client's investments. When I provide due diligence on these counterparties, one of the factors is going to be ease of access to their portal and the staff that manage these processes.
For any family office looking to their future aggregation, automation and analytics requirement's I make one major recommendation - even if you're not sure of your needs, the accuracy of your time series data will make any changes less painful.
Cheers
Shaun.
“Hall Road Investments Pty Ltd is a Corporate Authorised Representative (CAR No. 001279456) of Non Correlated Capital Pty Ltd (AFSL No. 499882). Shaun Parkin is an Authorised Representative (AR No 001279458) of Hall Road Investments Pty Ltd (CAR No. 001279456) and is authorised to provide general advice to wholesale investors”
Disclaimer: This email and any attachments to it (the "Communication") are, unless otherwise stated, confidential, may contain copyright material and is for the use only of the intended recipient. Nothing in the Communication constitutes an investment offering of any kind, unless expressly stated. This email is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment or financial advice. Before acting on any information contained in this email, each person should obtain independent taxation, financial and legal advice relating to this information and consider it carefully before making any decision or recommendation. If you receive the Communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete the Communication and the return e-mail, and do not read, copy, retransmit or otherwise deal with it. Any views expressed in the Communication are those of the individual sender only, unless expressly stated to be those of Hall Road Investments, 621 299 269 or any of its related entities. Hall Road Investments does not accept liability in connection with the integrity of, or errors in, the Communication, computer virus, data corruption, interference or delay arising from or in respect of the Communication.
Comments