SimCorp, a leading provider of highly specialized software and expertise for the investment industry, today released the results of a data management survey conducted in December 2011. The survey polled nearly 100 executives from 50 buy-side firms across North America.
Poll results revealed that over 40% are not confident that the data they are receiving from disparate systems such as order management systems, accounting, performance and risk systems, is consistent and of high quality. In addition, 67.4% of respondents believe that there is significant effort involved in reconciling data between disparate systems and sources. Approximately 22% of respondents indicated that it would take days to generate a report calculating their firm’s exposure/performance across all holdings, including derivatives (vs. minutes or hours). Nearly eight percent responded that this would take weeks.
“The statistics are distressing,” said Matt Samelson, principal at Woodbine Associates, the Stamford CT-based consulting firm. “According to these numbers, 40% of those surveyed are making investment decisions based on poor quality data and nearly 30% do not have a near-real time view into their exposure, making it impossible for these firms to be agile and respond to shifting market dynamics. We as a community need to galvanize change in order to restore investor confidence.”
“Improving data quality does not have to be rooted in a long and expensive enterprise data management undertaking,” notes David Kubersky, managing director of SimCorp North America. “Investment managers that have adopted core multi-asset class investment accounting systems have a distinct advantage with data quality, as position data is already consolidated in a single repository across all instrument classes.”
