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Jeff Greaney, Head of Investment Risk & Analytics Product Management, and Soundra Saravanan Technology Director, Asset Servicing, at Northern Trust, share insights into the data and digital transformation they have been working on over the last few years.
orthern Trust is a leading global provider of asset servicing solutions to institutional clients including investment managers, pension funds and insurance companies. 3
With assets under custody/ administration of US$15.5 trillion (source: Northern Trust, as at 31st March 2022), its solutions range from fund administration to global custody, investment risk analytics and investment operations outsourcing. Within its asset servicing business, Jeff Greaney leads the team responsible for product management in its Investment Risk and Analytics function (IRAS), while Soundra Saravanan acts as Technology Director across a range of business areas including analytics. The focus of Northern Trust’s investment analytics service is on four main areas. Jeff explains, “IRAS products span investment performance, investment risk, Environmental, Social and Governance factors, and investment compliance. The key for IRAS at Northern Trust is that, as one of the world’s foremost global asset servicers, we manage and safeguard client data. This
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Jeff Greaney, Head of Investment Risk & Analytics Product Management
enables us to build analytical solutions on top of that data. “Northern Trust is a serviceorientated organisation, so in line with that approach, all of our clients have a dedicated client service team from our group who support them and ensure they have the opportunity to derive maximum value from our solutions. We support many types of clients, ranging from asset owners, such as pension funds and insurance companies, to global investment managers and family offices.” Jeff and Soundra are currently focused on enhancing the endto-end technology used to deliver investment analytical capabilities to Northern Trust clients. Jeff 6
continues, “As a group, our focus is to support our clients in executing their investment and business strategy, and our solutions help them service their own investors and stakeholders. The support we offer takes two primary forms. The first is around data management. We
offer scalable solutions that look to help clients streamline their data operations and processes, to be more efficient in their management and use of data. The second is delivering greater transparency over their investments via the analytical insights that our clients are able
to generate through our solutions. While we have been doing both of these for a long time, this is a market that is being reshaped by technological developments, so we are evolving to continue to offer these capabilities in dynamic and flexible ways, consistent with what clients have come to expect. 7
GETTING FROM A TO AI The path to data analytics maturity Every business is sitting on a treasure trove of data. But to get from buried treasure to business value, organisations must have the ability to access, analyse, and act on that data. Companies that can harness their data and embed analytics and AI capabilities into their operations are outperforming the rest. The relationship between data analytics and AI can seem murky at times. To clarify, imagine that analytics and AI exist on a spectrum. Moving from the left to the right of that spectrum, we gain the ability to learn from the past and predict the future. A DATA FOUNDATION
AI MATURITY
The path to AI maturity must start with a sturdy data foundation. The ability of a business to move along the spectrum from data analytics to AI depends on the availability and cleanliness of that data. Essentially, insights are only as good as the underlying data on which they are based. When data analytics projects die, the failure can often be attributed to a lack of investment in building a strong data foundation. With a meticulously laid data foundation, you can ready
your organisation to operationalise analytics and, ultimately, tap the value of AI. BDO’S DATA ANALYTICS MATURITY MODEL Too often, organisations do not know where they stand—or what is next—in the daunting process of fully capitalising on their data. The three As of architecture, analytics and AI all need to come together to create the technological infrastructure necessary for data analytics maturation. Beyond these critical technical factors, an organisation’s ability to fully tap its data hinges on its people. Without attention to leadership, culture, and employee upskilling, a company’s workforce cannot support the future state of the business. WHERE ORGANISATIONS GO WRONG Successfully reaching data analytics maturity can best be attributed to getting the right data into the right hands with the right business case. Most failures occur in low to mid-maturity levels, before analytics have fully permeated every aspect of the business—while doubts and discomfort can weaken employee adoption.
1. Getting the right data… Data must be refined, cleaned and governed to set the right foundation. A centralised data strategy and scalable architecture to support the future state of the program is essential.
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DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS
DIAGNOSTIC ANALYTICS
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS
COGNITIVE ANALYTICS
What happened?
Why did it happen?
What might happen?
What should I do?
What don't I know?
2…Into the right hands Once a company puts the right data infrastructure and technologies in place, the question remains: Will the workforce embrace or resist it? It is critical that the data evangelist who champions the data analytics program has the organisational clout and authority to inspire others.
3…With the right business case Reaching data analytics maturity requires investment in people, process and technology. Clearly stating potential ROI from the onset of the project is critical to help leadership and employees across the organisation recognise the value in proceeding. Learn More >
About BDO Digital: BDO Digital helps organisations turn data into an engine of insight and strategic value. Our business analytics and data teams work with you to advance your overall data and AI maturity in increments that address defined business needs and deliver near-term results. We align your data transformation strategy with your business goals so that every initiative leads to better business outcomes.
RICH LAMORENA Principal, Co-Leader Data & AI Practice at BDO Digital USA
JASON KOCH Director, Solution Architecture at BDO Digital USA
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“Additionally, on the analytics capability side, you could historically split the industry into those who deliver certified investment analytics – meaning that data has been fully audited and reconciled to an official book of record – and those who deliver indicative investment analytics. While both ‘views’ are useful, it means that many clients have been forced to run multiple solutions.” Jeff explains, “Clients typically generate an official view of investment analytics, but then supplement that with another platform that creates different views of the world that may not align to the official book of record, but still provides them with important investment insights. What we are looking to do is to really give our clients the best of both worlds. Our current focus is to allow more self-service type of analysis with an analytical ‘sandbox’ where clients can create multiple views of data and analytics. “For example, some clients wished to know how their exposure or investment performance would look if, for instance, they wrote their Russian assets down to zero in the 10
“Where we have the skillset to build something, let’s do it. If not, we can collaborate with partners to get us there faster” Jeff Greaney
wake of recent sanctions. Being able to put that type of capability directly in the hands of our clients and letting them get the answer in a matter of seconds, as opposed to hours or days, is what we want to achieve.” Jeff says that a reimagined data management layer will act as an enabler of all of this. He adds, “This is where we are going to pull in all the source data, apply our data quality and control processes, and transform it.” The team provides clients with bespoke solutions that are tailored to each of their own individual requirements. Soundra says, “We take data from multiple accounting platforms and assemble it in
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the way that the client finds useful, providing sandbox capabilities, using technology that is purpose-built for that. “We bring our own data management platform that we have built inhouse, along with the cloud scalability, to provide this solution in a cost-efficient way. We are using Microsoft Azure for the cloud, along with other Microsoft PaaS capabilities. We currently have around 900 clients, so we are building this latest platform for scale, so we can onboard even more clients. We also want to be able to consume data from any accounting platform in the future. Solving this threedimensional problem in a cost-efficient way is very interesting.” Soundra highlights that Northern Trust was clear about what it set out to achieve with its transformation journey, but it was vital that it partnered with other 12
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strategic partners to be successful. He continues, “We partnered with Microsoft and BDO early on to see what combination of technology would bring optimum results. BDO knows the latest Microsoft technology very well, so they worked with us to engineer our solution and help us reach our goal. We then chose some sample use cases from our legacy platform and started testing the results. We have now
Soundra Saravanan Technology Director, Asset Servicing
“BDO knows the latest Microsoft technology very well, so they worked with us to engineer our solution and help us reach our goal” Soundra Saravanan, Technology Director
gone live for some clients with this technology solution.” For the data management solution, Northern Trust partnered with Stradegi Solutions. Soundra explains, “Stradegi has a technology solution we could use as an accelerator to achieve what we wanted in that space. It was key for us to get quickly to where we wanted to go.” Jeff reinforces the importance of
partnering with other likeminded companies. He adds, “Where we have the skillset to build something, let’s do it. If not, we can collaborate with partners to get us there faster. It is a good mix of the things we have built internally, as well as the things we have brought in. “I’ll also add that bringing our clients with us on this journey is essential. We interviewed a number of clients at the start of our program, and along the way, we are checking 15
back in with them to demonstrate our progress and take feedback. We are now at the beta stage for some clients, so we’re excited to get the capability directly in their hands and get even more feedback.” The company already has a very large global footprint, but connecting to different source
to deliver that would give us the option to say, ‘It does not matter where your assets are, from an investments analytics perspective, you can get that top-down view’.” Where clients look for a data aggregation solution, they are typically just buying software, and still have to manage all
“Stradegi has a technology solution we could use as an accelerator to achieve what we wanted in that space. It was key for us to get quickly to where we wanted to go” Soundra Saravanan
data will be the big one from a growth perspective in the future. Jeff continues, “As Northern Trust manages its clients’ data today, that is where all our connections are. If you have a client that has half of their assets at Northern Trust and half of their assets somewhere else, we believe what many clients in this position want is a view across everything from the ‘top down’. The capability
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their data internally. This is where Northern Trust can assist. Jeff adds, “We think this is a good place for us to be; where our client can, if they wish, obtain data aggregation, and the data management component is outsourced to an experienced provider like Northern Trust that has global scale, for which this is a core capability.”
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Soundra says clients are now increasingly looking for Application Programming Interface (API) capabilities to streamline the exchange of data between their organisations and Northern Trust. He concludes, “A number of clients are asking to access our reporting layer. Some already have a reporting layer 18
in-house, so for these clients, we can offer API solutions to connect them directly to the data. We are working hard on this solution, as well as everything else we have mentioned. It is a very exciting time!” Some clients like to have more control internally over what their
data looks like and how they operate, using Northern Trust analytical tools to support their internal operations; while other clients may want to be as lean as possible and outsource everything, with information being delivered to them through their portal. Jeff says, “We have a whole range of support
models that we offer our clients, but in all cases, we offer the hightouch support that we think is in the Northern Trust ‘DNA’.” For further information on Northern Trust and its Investment Risk and Analytical Solutions, visit northerntrust.com 19
northerntrust.com
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