Energy & Commodities

chief executive officer, SunGard Financial Systems

Capitalize on Change

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Wherever you sit or whatever job you do, you’ve just witnessed the biggest change to the financial services industry in living memory.  A wave of regulations, the growth of emerging markets, and revolutionary technologies are not only reshaping the financial services industry; the very pace of change has become quicker. It creates big challenges for organizations. But, with big challenges also come big opportunities.  I personally find it to be a very exciting time. We’re helping our customers capitalize on the opportunities presented by change by helping them increase transparency and efficiency and better leverage networks.

For example, our wholesale finance customers are under a lot of pressure to meet evolving regulatory requirements and accurately measure and report risk. From stress testing to data consolidation to complex calculations, we’re helping our customers capitalize on the changes in regulations. We’re helping them achieve greater transparency into their risk exposures and to create a better risk practice across and at all levels of the organization.

At the same time, improved speed and performance remain the very essence of achieving efficiency. With faster speed and better data management becoming more critical for traders, for example, algorithms and market data are taking center stage. We’re providing financial institutions with multi-asset, multi-market capabilities; award-winning algorithms, and cost-effective market data.

In the space of consumer finance, mobile networks are transforming how our customers service their clients. We’re providing more and more of our solutions on mobile applications, to help our customers connect with their clients across the spectrum of wealth, at any time, in any part of the world.

By embracing the evolution happening all around us, we’re helping our customers capitalize on change in wholesale finance, consumer finance, and corporate liquidity. At the end of the day, change ultimately creates huge opportunities for customers to differentiate and grow their businesses.

When you think about changes in the finance industry, what do you think of first? The impacts of the Dodd-Frank Act and liquidity issues? The move of OTC derivatives to central clearing? Or the rise of the emerging markets and new wealth in the BRIC countries?

We look forward to continuing the discussion on many of these topics online on our TEN web site as well as at our live SunGard City Day events around the world. Please join in the conversation, we want to help you  capitalize on change.

head of product management, SunGard Financial Systems

Transparency, Efficiency and Networks Reshaping Financial Services in 2010

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Financial institutions worldwide are cautiously optimistic about 2010. While CIOs are not planning huge IT budget increases, they are focusing on three main areas: (1) improving transparency, (2) increasing efficiency, and (3) leveraging networks.

Regulators and investors alike want more visibility into the business. Regulators want to be confident that executives have a firm grasp of their risk and certain that banks have the right level of capital reserves to weather any future storm.

Transparency requires the right data and the right analytics for data to become actionable in a timely manner. The data is there, but it is often inaccessible, incomplete and inconsistent. Getting data out of many systems is a real challenge. Then it’s a question of how fast it can be analyzed to get results.

Risk and compliance will consume firms’ resources going forward. Firms will need to unlock data for better risk management, and for meeting increased reporting requirements.

Past focus on cost cutting has shifted to efficiency. Firms are looking for better ways to leverage existing resources and gain efficiency for growth and profitability.

The main areas of focus around efficiency include automating (1) processes with increasing volumes to ensure lower cost scalability, (2) labor intensive, paper based or manual processes to reduce operational risk, and (3) customer facing processes to increase customer satisfaction.

Legacy infrastructures and well established business processes create many challenges. Changing workflows of information and people can be difficult. New processes can get locked into place, making it difficult to adapt to new circumstances.

Business Process Management (BPM) can help solve this problem. Our whole move to SaaS solutions aligns with the desire to be more efficient. On-demand solutions allow for quick access to capabilities as they’re needed, procurement based actual usage, and rapid implementation without the IT strain.

Firms will continue to leverage networks to automate the business value chain or the “ecosystem” of institutions that work together. Networks connect firms together, giving them more choices and business opportunity.

Choosing the right networks is a challenge. They need to get firms to the right places and offer additional value along the way. SunGard’s global trading network gives firms the ability to access new markets, offer new asset classes, and tap into additional services such as unique pools of liquidity.

In capital markets, the smaller mid-tier brokers see a real opportunity for growth. To succeed, they’ll need a transaction processing infrastructure on a global network to access the venues that provide best execution, most aggressive rebates and best liquidity.

What do you see as the biggest challenges related to transparency, efficiency and networks? How is your firm managing them?