In October, AssetMetrix co-hosted a Breakfast Briefing event with The Drawdown, where experts Leanne England FCA, Finance Director at ETF Partners, John Horton, Finance Director at DN Capital & Dr. Dimitris Matalliotakis, CTO at AssetMetrix were interviewed by Alice Murray, The Drawdown, on the challenges faced in collecting and managing data and reporting the necessary metrics to investors.
At the event, we took an in-depth look at the status quo and how each of the companies use technology to deal with the complexities and challenges of information flows from portfolio companies through to investors.
Key Questions raised:
- What is the current information flow to investors? What would be the ideal situation?
- What are the biggest hurdles around collecting data and data management?
- What about less structured data, namely ESG. How does that kind of reporting requirement and portfolio management impact this information flow?
- What are the key considerations when selecting which technology to use?
- How will the developing macroeconomic picture impact how GPs interact with LPs and their information demands?
Key Takeaways:
- Excel is still the industry standard and here to stay for the near future although it has many limitations, particularly in regard to data quality and integrity. The industry needs to find a way to reach a level of more automation and more integration.
- There is a multitude of challenges GPs are facing in this regard including collecting the right data from the right investments, varying data quality, extracting and interpreting the right data as well as ensuring numbers are reported consistently in a meaningful way.
- When considering which technology to use one key challenge is to find one solution that fixes as many problems as possible. At the same time it needs to be ensured that with the implementation of a new system your teams don’t end up taking three times longer to use it because there is no clear understanding how to use it correctly.
- Technology-as-a-Service can provide the key to the mentioned challenges, especially as it takes away the need for the client to deal with the complexity of technology and data processing. The combination of technology and business experts who understand the requirements ensures that the expected value is generated.
