SS&C Advent has a rich history as a pioneer in investment management technology. In fact, both we and our parent company have solved problems for investment managers since the mid-1980s, and are responsible for an enormous share of the technology that powers the asset and wealth management industries around the globe.
One of our goals is to keep moving forward and deliver advancements that help our clients operate more efficiently and compete more effectively. What’s interesting is that many of the fundamental problems we help solve have not changed much since the 1980s. Firms still have to build strategies, construct portfolios, acquire and service investors, ensure their data is accurate, and make and execute investment decisions every day. What has changed, however, is the world in which investment firms operate. Strategies change more frequently. Portfolio construction has become more complex. Acquiring and servicing investors requires omni-channel access and engagement. Data has proliferated exponentially. And of course, technology has advanced rapidly, helping drive growth and change. Firms look to technology not just for increased efficiency, but for sharp data insights and competitive agility.
What this means is that much of the innovation taking place today is rooted in solving familiar problems in new ways. How do we leverage the tools available to us to solve these problems as the market continues evolving? Luckily, our deep and trusted foundation in accounting data means that innovation does not need to start from scratch.
When we think about innovation strategically, three core principles guide us:
- Continue to invest in enhancing the solutions that our clients trust for their key workflows. Accurate accounting and reconciled data are fundamental to running an investment business successfully. Our technologies need to continue to advance the state of the art. The breadth of solutions we offer is difficult for other providers to match or to catch up with, and one of the main reasons clients choose to partner with us.
- Start from scratch where it makes sense. Looking at the example of our Advent Genesis platform, we have been releasing native cloud workflows to solve a variety of portfolio management problems for several years. Our team has continued to evolve and grow, along with our ability to continuously deliver value. Three years ago, we were delivering updates to our Genesis customers every six weeks. Now we are delivering updates weekly to ensure that our customers benefit continuously from new enhancements to their workflows
- Focus on going deep before we go broad. The market has heard all the buzz phrases: “All in one, front-to-back, one-stop-shop…” These are not unattainable goals, and they are worth pursuing. But our customers are too often hearing of new and even existing solutions that promise to deliver on every workflow, then end up being “a mile wide and inch deep.” Our innovation strategy is built around achieving depth first and foremost. This strategy has served us well with our accounting solutions and our outsourcing offering, and most recently with our rollout of Genesis Portfolio Management, which was designed with a clear focus on portfolio construction, rebalancing and order creation. We have invested heavily in the underlying Genesis technology stack over time and are now ready to tackle a new set of problems.
Our journey to a full suite of cloud solutions on our platform is iterative. That is intentional. We are focused on solving real problems for our clients – problems that haven’t changed at their core since we started as a company, but certainly have grown in complexity. And complexity is where innovation thrives.
