By Mike Canni, Opus Fund Services – Innovations such as self-driving cars and voice activated assistants, for example Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, are increasingly becoming the new norm. “Smart Automation” is increasingly becoming the focus for the technology industry. As society evolves to understand and accept these changes, it’s important to understand that “Smart Automation” is very different than simple “Automation”.
Smart Automation combines a deep understanding of workflow with robust granular data to allow highly efficient, accurate, and controlled decisions to be made. For example, “Automation” is represented by the standard cruise control that maintains a car’s speed. Alternatively, “Smart Automation” is the autopilot or enhanced cruise control systems that use cameras, radar and sonar to read and understand the immediate environment.
So why is “Smart Automation” important to the fund administration industry? As a key service provider to alternative asset firms, we deal with complex workflows every day. Many of these workflows relate to transactions that have a high degree of inherent risk. A properly designed administration system will allow for robust data input and milestone tracking, as well as workflow logic definitions. By introducing “Smart Automation” into our industry, we can combine data with business logic and introduce highly streamlined and efficient workflows.
At Opus, we have been at the forefront of integrating “Smart Automation” into our systems to provide cutting edge services to our clients. One example is our banking team and their distribution process. Opus processes thousands of distribution payments each month, and while many of these payments go to individual investors, the majority are paid to retirement account custodians.
By developing proper business logic, evaluating risks, and establishing key transaction milestones and data collection, Opus has been able to create “Smart Automation” to safely handle these high volumes. Using a similar methodology, we have also integrated “Smart Automation” into our investor onboarding process, investor document releases, task management and resource assignment tools, without the traditional administrative overhead.
At Opus, our goal has always been to be the best and most innovative fund administrator. This involves always being a leader in the development of industry changing technology. “Smart Automation” will prove to be one of the most important technological developments our industry has experienced. As an early adopter of this technology, Opus provides more accurate services that are on time, cost effective, and involve less risk for our clients.
Equally as important, this “Smart Automation” is fully scalable to meet the needs of any sized client, surpassing current industry performance standards. It is our company-wide goal to constantly innovate and develop our business to provide maximum value to our clients. Whether you are a new launch or an experienced fund, Opus Fund Services has developed technology that allows our business to provide superior fund administration services to all managers, at a fraction that the incumbents charge. You don’t have to be “Smart” to recognise the value of more service for less money.
