Debunking 3 Myths about Investment Technology Integration

Thinking integration is too expensive is a refusal to see the big picture. The most successful firms of the future are spending money on integration now. Why? Because they understand that controlling their data allows them to make better business decisions, gain more detailed insights, and easily produce reports for both clients and audits. Don’t lose business because you failed to act.

While locating the best integration solutions for your office may appear daunting in the short term, the value you’ll add in the long term is well worth it. It’s also important to understand that you have options for how you find and install these solutions. You can go it alone and use your free time to research vendors, products, and potential compatibility. This is a time-consuming process, but it can be done. Another option is hiring a 3rd party company or consultant to take on certain tasks or the entire process. This route is a great alternative especially if you’d like to save energy, money, and time. The goal is to find a company with your best interests in mind that can effectively do a lot of the heavy lifting for you throughout the process.

You’ve heard the old saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Maybe you’re a subscriber to this thought process. But the truth is if it isn’t broken now, it probably will be in the future. Let’s dive deeper. There are really two main ways data is utilized: internally (business intelligence) and externally (client-facing, regulatory audits). Internal data enhances the decision-making of your firm. It gives you the “why” when you’re answering questions about hiring, outsourcing, and resource allocation by providing historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Externally, you want integration to make data accessible to your clients and regulators. Offering clients portal access so they can see updated information and exchange messages and documents securely with their advisor is becoming standard practice. If your business doesn’t provide this, you can be certain your clients will find one that does. In addition, when regulators come knocking, you want to be ready. Legacy systems with limited or no access to data spell trouble during audits. It’s an unnecessary risk that can be solved by extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) the data into a newer, integrated system.