From Improved Efficiency to Competitive Advantage

A mid-sized independent asset management firm overseeing more than $110 billion in equity and fixed income portfolios implemented InterSystems Data Studio™ to unify disparate data across dozens of data sources and systems such as spreadsheets, external data and service providers, legacy systems, data lakes, data warehouses, and data marts.

The firm initially focused on establishing a data foundation that could support a variety of internal reporting use cases. Upon completion of an initial pilot, the automation, reliability, and ease of use provided by Data Studio enabled the firm to expand the solution across the business. Data Studio now enables timely, consistent, and governed data that powers analytics, product innovation, operational and client reporting, and risk and regulatory compliance. The solution’s value expanded through three progressive phases.

Like many asset managers, the firm wrestled with fragmented data pipelines and manual processes that introduced duplication, latency, and high maintenance demands. Access to accurate data was inconsistent across teams, and point solutions added cost and complexity.

Data Studio, a fully-managed, cloud-hosted platform, enabled the firm to consolidate and automate the required data management tasks, including ingestion, integration, governance, orchestration, data quality, and access control using one unified environment. All consuming applications now draw from a single source of truth without requiring data duplication or mapping, regardless of access method or data model.

Automating key processes drove immediate impact. Two initial use cases alone saved the firm 200 full-time equivalent (FTE) hours per month, allowing the data and analytics team to focus on more strategic work. They also avoided $200,000 in additional annual staffing costs and retired several legacy point solutions, reducing operational overhead while improving reliability.

By automating the data processing required for two initial use cases, the client was able to reallocate about 200 full-time employee (FTE) hours per month to other, higher-value projects. These savings are expected to accrue with each new use case as the firm does not need additional staff to expand the use of the InterSystems solution.

As more datasets were integrated into the platform, the firm expanded usage into portfolio, client, and distribution teams. Decision-makers gained real-time visibility into portfolio- and client-level performance, enhancing distribution, sales, and marketing effectiveness.

The firm automated daily and monthly flows and asset reporting, improving turnaround times for RFP/RFI responses and client inquiries. They also streamlined the launch of a proprietary investment risk analytics platform by completing the data modeling and integration work in under six months by using the same data foundation.

This improved time to market also supported product innovation, and enabled the firm to launch their first exchange-traded fund (ETF). The required data preparation was completed in approximately three months, strengthening the firm’s competitive position and client retention, and protecting assets under management.

Superior client experiences are a key differentiator for asset managers, and this firm is no exception. They transformed their client reporting, resulting in a modern experience that improves transparency and client engagement. Previously, the firm maintained 10+ variations of reports, often assembled manually, which increased operational effort and made consistency and auditability difficult to maintain.

To streamline reporting, they standardized the data model and centralized reporting logic in Data Studio by creating two client templates: one for institutional investors and one for private wealth clients. Snapshot and lineage capabilities available natively in Data Studio now provide full auditability across the reporting lifecycle, allowing teams to trace issues, validate accuracy, and confidently address client questions.

All active clients are now on the new reporting platform. The entire initiative, including decommissioning all legacy reporting processes, was completed in just nine months, without increasing headcount.

The asset management firm continues to build on its data foundation to support operational efficiency, analytics, new product development, and client service. Their experience demonstrates how a scalable data platform can deliver meaningful value over time as business needs evolve.