Efficient information and effective analysis are vital in investment management. You need a tool that can keep track of market movements, manage wealth, and inform diversification strategies quickly. Every moment lost to a cumbersome process can mean an opportunity missed or worse.

Investment portfolio managers and consultants are regularly pushed to the brim of their collars and need a software solution that can keep up. Unfortunately, the wealth at play invites a new digital management platform to the market almost every day. With the host of options saturated, it is costing consultants too much time to list their needs, survey the vendors, narrow down the list, and make a choice.

The risks and obstacles paralyze the decision-making process as getting it wrong comes with consequences.  The career risks are not equivalent to other industries. Missing an opportunity to buy a stock and increase wealth is barely forgivable. However, not offloading a tanking stock quick enough can be a career-defining misstep.

With the markets reacting with more volatility than ever before, thanks to elections, breakthroughs, failures, and more, the need for the right investment management software could not be timelier. Finding a trusted provider, however, can prove a daunting challenge but one made easier with the use of Olive.

How to choose the best investment management solution for your enterprise

We fully appreciate the buying process may be exhausting and off-putting given your experience. Unfortunately, each moment without an effective investment management solution could be wealth lost for your clients. It is a double-edged sword but when the time constraints are set aside, the process itself is vital.

1.     Identify Requirements Specific to Your Services

Wealth and investment management services, much like the market it rests on, are diverse.

Stocks, futures, options, and bonds are but a few of the assets your company may track depending on your clients. Even their aims range from fortifying wealth to safeguarding their future.

The point to keep in mind is that each investment management practice requires unique results from the software solution they employ. Those needs should always guide the process and not the sales tactic or features conveyed by vendors.

Survey your products, services, strategies, and team needs to develop a list of ranked priorities from a potential suitor.

• What products and services do you offer? What markets are associated with your products?
• How many portfolios is each team member responsible for?
• How quickly do you need data reported? Do you need up-to-the-minute analytics?
• What level of security do you need?
• Do you need distributed cloud functions? (Multiple person and location access)

These prioritized requirements ought to lead the dance for any vendor as your consultancy and career depend on the right information being delivered to your fingertips at the right time. It is our aim to make that happen for you so knowing what benefits are a priority to your team is paramount.

By ranking priorities, you can see what is critical to the team and what would simply be a nice-to-have. Do not discard the ‘nice-to-haves’ as they may be used to break any deadlocks later in the process.

2.      Survey the Market and List Potential Software Solutions

Empowered by the benefits you are seeking and what is most important, you are equipped with a lens to view the market. It is much easier to root out options that don’t fit your needs and those with potential.

In step two of the buying process, cast a net wide enough to capture the outliers who might offer something new that you haven’t thought of. Emerging solutions, while occasionally awkward, might fix your problems in creative ways. This stage of the process is not to dig too deep but merely capturing potential suitors.

Whilst searching the market, visit Gartner and Forrester.  Keep in mind, often vendors pay to play in this space, so the results may be biased. Of course, Google will feature in your search as will Forbes and the stock exchange themselves. Discuss your needs with market contacts and your staff. New graduates and new recruits have recent exposure to alternative sources and might broaden the search.

3.      Evaluate According to Fit and Develop a Shortlist

Perusing the solutions to make life easier for you and your associates is an exciting time. It gets challenging in the next step where you need to diligently eliminate poorly fitting options leaving only those who serve your needs.

Shearing the list back to 4 options is ideal in shortlisting. Having 4 suitors affords the time to thoroughly investigate the compatibility with your need. As an industry that prides itself on remaining alert to sudden changes in your market, it is important to remain focused on the objective of evaluation.

Most often the evaluation process begins with developing a budget. This will typically be an initial capital outlay, ongoing contract, or fee plus retainer depending on the vendor. Developing a budget can be complex without having a system already in place to compare it to. However, one of the key drivers should be the familiar concept of ROI.

Estimating the time, energy, expense, and resources you incur in the absence of an investment management software solution is a good starting point. What do you stand to save with a bespoke solution? What is the cost v value trade-off? Depending on the size of your firm, these benefits may be subject to the multiplier effect.

Once you have established the value of your solution and equated it to an affordable budget, it helps to assess your vendors through a host of other lenses.

• Did this vendor satisfy my number 1 priority?
• Is this option usable for my whole team and scalable?
• Does it deliver relevant information quickly?
• Do the analytics report on stocks and trades involving my services?
• Is this software compatible with my tech stack?
• Is this solution flexible enough for use in different markets?
• Who else does this vendor work with?
• If I encounter problems, will the vendor fix the software?
• Will this software improve my business?

4.     Demo your Investment Management Solution

The final step in your evaluation process should be to demo the potential solution. Each vendor

that has been fortunate enough to make your shortlist should have an option to book a demonstration through their website.

Just like the other steps, this is crucial. No vendor should encourage the purchase without a test drive even if they are disinterested in a rigorous selection process. Your demo should be welcomed with open arms.

It remains important to encapsulate the views of each end-user from your team. Bring one or more of the team with you to accurately represent the other stakeholders. If you think you should be the sole decision-maker, compare it to bed shopping without your significant other. It simply is not advisable. Having a second set of eyes ensures the appropriateness of the solution and the likelihood of seamless implementation.

Be prepared with questions and be frank with the vendor about your desired attributes.

• How does the software attend to your top-ranked needs?
• What extra features could be a major asset in the future?
• How helpful was the follow-up?
• How does it fit with each possible end-user?

5.     Choosing the Best Investment Management Solution for Your Enterprise

Undoubtedly, you will each have a favorite and hopefully, it will be the same one but in-keeping with the

process, it helps to remove bias by revisiting your ranked list of priorities? Have you chosen based on the input of the full team and your true business goals?

If you settle on one your team believes is ‘just right’, the cherry on top is a background check. Just like you were hiring a new team member, conducting reputational research eliminates concerns. Dig into reviews wherever you can find them and ask for top client references.

As the buyer, it is your responsibility to your team to ensure they receive the best equipment possible.

Benefits of the Right Investment Management Solution

Olive’s clients have never looked back once since implementing their software solutions. The benefits of enlisting our product have saved our partners huge amounts of time, money, and opportunities by simplifying and automating much of the process.

Our clients have reported significant improvements in:

–          Decision making – Speedy access to data through accurate reporting and dashboards informs every investment decision. Strategies can now be based on long-form market trends to optimize investment plans. Live data is the cutting edge many investors had been waiting for.

–          Improved risk management – Personal and business risk reduction with the availability of key data and trends. Clarifying which stocks and investments are more prone to risk or suffering slowed rates of return. Mitigating and covering exposure is a vital part of your business and the right software makes this easier.

–          Organized portfolio management – Many software solutions now come with bird’s eye dashboards making it easy to make quick assessments of different portfolios, levels of risk, and diversification.

–          Team Cohesion – Teams improve transparency by having a common shared platform. Rather than clumsy traditional methods of advice and alert, teams are swapping information quickly and making better decisions together.

Conclusion

The benefits of employing an investment management solution are as plain as day. For the age we are now living in and the acceptance of digital solutions, adapting automating technology is often a foregone conclusion.

Olive is not subject to the bias of market evaluator platforms as we don’t charge vendors to feature as part of our services.  This means that your need is the only influence on our market survey. Olive takes your priority requirements and finds the best solutions available.

None of your time is wasted by over-promising vendors, misleading demos, or any of the BS you have previously experienced. We cut through the noise and get to the heart of the issue taking months off the process in doing so.

The deterrent has typically been the inefficiency of the process, taking months of time investors simply do not have. By using Olive to find your investment management solution, your digital transformation streamlines the process in accordance with your aims. We give you the facts and details integral to your requirements without bias. Our motives are clear and simple; to deliver the best investment management solution for your enterprise.