Objective
Development of a Target Operating Model for a portfolio of Real Assets to enable improved analysis and reporting of investment and portfolio returns.
Challenge
Real Assets portfolio of a large pension fund wanted to improve transparency and speed of performance information to be able to provide continuous and accurate performance information to measure and monitor effectiveness of investment strategies.
The investment support functions were organised along regional lines and did not allow for a global view of the portfolio returns, accounting functions were decentralised and led to delays in regular reporting, portfolio analytics functions did not exist.
Solution
The solution required a re-think of the operating model to improve the speed and accuracy of investment and portfolio performance reporting.
The design of the Target Operating Model required ● redesign of the support functions ● centralisation of the accounting function ● development of an central analytics function ● re-design of the data and information flows ● simplification of the chart of accounts ● development of KPI’s ● analysis of existing skill set within the team and capabilities needed to implement the Target Operating Model.
Benefits
The re-designed Middle and Back office resulted in (a) accurate and timely information on portfolio returns to be provided to key decision makers, (b) improved analysis of the returns and comparison against forecasts, (c) significant improvement in timeliness of reporting.
The re-design also resulted in a re-assessment of the head count required to operate the newly organised functions.
Certain services were eliminated or automated. Achieved significant improvement of collaboration between functions.
Technologies utilised
- eFront
- PowerBI
- SimCorp
- Oracle