Billy, gasping with exhaustion enters the classroom. “Why are you late!” barks his teacher. “Because I had to run all the way to school!” answers Billy. “Your bicycle is right outside, what do you mean you ran all the way to school?” his teacher demands. “I had to run alongside my bicycle all the way here!” Billy answers. “Why on earth would you run alongside your bicycle, why didn’t you get on your bike and ride it?” his teacher retorts in an unbelieving tone. “I was so late I didn’t have time to get on my bike…”
A bit cliché? – Maybe. And you may be wondering what has this got to do with technology? Our little story is a reflection of the way many businesses operate. Would you use a paperbound ledger to manage your portfolio and a note pad of paper to keep track of your appointments and compliance information?”Don’t be ridiculous” is your answer! Then why are so many firms settling for low-tech solutions to high-tech problems? It is a waste of the most valuable asset – time. This is running alongside the bicycle!
What is the primary role and value of software? Outside of entertainment, it is to streamline processes that are resource intensive, repetitive and time consuming. Any business process that is repeatable, predictable, and prone to human error due complexity, tedium, volume or any combination thereof is a prime candidate to apply automation technology and techniques to. Software can be used very effectively to rein in the cost of automating these business processes. Doing so will enable you to buy back your most precious asset – time. Now we can see the value of the bicycle!
Consider the process of taking on new clients and all of the tasks involved. There is a litany of tasks to manage. Starting with the initial paperwork, the modeling and allocation of assets, to the rebalancing and trading of those assets, there is a formidable amount of tedious, repetitive and error-prone tasks to be accomplished. A large portion of these tasks are repeated again and again. Human involvement in repetitive, tedious and complex tasks, errors can be easily injected into the process. Some errors are benign while others can be a real cause of concern and sleepless nights for your chief compliance officer.
You can streamline your business processes by putting software to work for you. Software was designed to help take the burden off of you and your staff. It should make you more efficient in measurable ways and help mitigate various types of risk. Software is a tool and as such it should be under your command. After all, when was the last time you saw a hammer taking command over the carpenter? If your software is making you work – fire it! Get on the bicycle and save yourself a lot of steps!