By A Paris – 2020 may have been a rude introduction to the world of remote working, but the months of travel restrictions and the shift to virtual working have proved to the fund management industry that alternatives to traditional full-time office set-ups can indeed work. Technology oiled the wheels for changing the way organisations operate and continues to play a significant role in their strategy going forward.

Technology has been critical to investment managers being nimble and adapting their processes to the fast-changing environment. This is also leading to new business outlooks as firms weigh up the benefits of making certain elements of the Covid-19 shift a permanent part of the way they operate.

As hedge funds become more comfortable with cloud database technology, the opportunity for new, more efficient ways of sharing data between organisations is starting to become a reality.

By Robin Bedford, Opus Fund Services – The average hedge fund life expectancy is 3-5 years. Long-term viability is almost exclusively determined by ability to raise long-term capital. Many new managers launch without a major institutional ‘anchor’ investor, making it an instant chicken and egg problem. The smaller you are, the harder it is to raise capital. 

The past six months have seen hedge fund managers deploy their disaster recovery plans which had probably been gathering dust since they were first drawn up. The shift to remote working has however uncovered key-person risk organisations were unknowingly exposed to. This in turn underscored the need for co-sourcing solutions to document and streamline all processes within a firm.