The Opportunity
The company, a leading global asset manager and insurer, faced significant operational challenges due to fragmented systems and manual processes across its 10+ international offices spanning their global operations. Each region relied on country-specific accounting workflows and procedures, fragmented trading systems, operations and reporting workflows, creating silos that hindered transparency and efficiency.
Middle and back office faced significant challenges with manual data entry, reconciliation, and month-end closing processes which consumed hundreds of hours monthly for each region. In addition, as a result of manual processes, there were low STP rates and inconsistent workflows which led to reporting errors and compliance risks.
Front office portfolio managers and traders struggled with disjointed systems, where they did not have a consolidated view on their trade data cash, and private and public market positions.
The complexity of maintaining over 10 legacy systems—each with unique configurations and vendor dependencies—drove up IT costs and limited scalability. Leadership recognized the urgent need to consolidate systems, automate manual tasks, and adopt global standards to reduce costs, improve agility, and support growth in emerging markets. The transformation aimed to unify accounting globally, streamline front office trading and provide more transparency into their portfolios, and to enable do-it-yourself reporting, positioning the firm to compete in an increasingly digital financial landscape.
The Solution
The company embarked on a multi-year transformation, deploying four new core systems integrated systems: a global accounting platform, a cloud-based enterprise data management system, a global front-office trading system, and a centralized reporting and analytics engine.
New Target Operating Ecosystem
IBOR – Public Markets
Bloomberg AIM
IBOR – Private Markets
Various Regional Systems
ABOR
SimCorp Dimension
Data Management
Bloomberg
Reporting/Cloud
Microsoft Azure and PowerBI
ABOR Transformation
The accounting system replaced legacy systems and processes from 10+ countries, standardizing workflows for accounting operations.
Several accounting frameworks were incorporated, including IFRS, USGAAP, USTAT, JGAAP, and other regional specific accounting requirements.
OMS/EMS/IBOR Transformation
The new front-office system integrated seamlessly with the accounting platform, enabling end-to-end trade lifecycle automation. It enabled front office portfolio managers and traders a better view of their portfolios and available cash positions.
Enter & Reporting Transformation
Complementing and integrated with the new IBOR and ABOR, the enterprise data management (EDM) system enabled a cloud-based data management and integration across the entire IT ecosystem into a single source of truth.
The new Azure-based Reporting solution moved away from the legacy ‘batch reporting’ model, to a user-driven customizable dashboards which can be used in predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and other use cases.
The Impact
The impact for this initiative benefitted global operations immensely. STP rates for trade processing surged to over 90%+, reducing trade settlement errors, manual processes, and costly exceptions. Accounting showed significant improvements, where month end closing went from requiring 10+ days to three days. In addition, further automations were added to month end system and operational processes, which further streamlined month end and other processes, saving a large amount of hours, reducing risks and lowering operating costs. The consolidated IT architecture reduced licensing, maintenance, and labor expenses significantly, while enabling a scalable and flexible platform.
Beyond efficiency gains, the overhaul enhanced strategic decision-making. Executives gained real-time visibility into global performance metrics, enabling faster responses to market shifts. Risk management improved through automated compliance checks and audit trails, reducing regulatory penalties and compliance violations.
Most notably, the firm strengthened client trust by delivering accurate, timely reporting and accelerating launches for new service offerings, mandates, and products. By unifying systems and processes, the company achieved a future-ready infrastructure that balances agility, cost efficiency, and resilience in a dynamic industry.
