By Myles Allan
Interview Summary
Introduction and background:
Myles Allan introduces himself as the founding partner of MOSAIC FSI and introduces Matthew Cousins, an Investment Data Analyst at Pie Funds
Initial challenges and goals at Pie Funds
Matthew discusses the primary objectives that led Pie Funds to search for a data platform. They aimed to establish a reliable, centralised source of truth for their investment data management to reduce reliance on third parties and gain flexibility in data usage.
The goal for Pie Funds was to balance having necessary expertise with ensuring team collaboration without dependency on niche technical skills.
Platform selection
After evaluating various platforms, Pie Funds chose ICS ATHENA for its comprehensive investment data management capabilities.
Key features of ATHENA include powerful ETL functionality, seamless integration with existing systems, and the ability to handle a wide range of data formats.
The deep understanding of investment management challenges by ICS and their tailored solutions stood out, along with the dedicated support team.
Implementation experience
The implementation of ATHENA was smooth, supported by a dedicated team based in Australia, the UK, and the US. The comprehensive training and project management provided by ICS made a significant difference.
The training focused on enabling Pie Funds' team to manage the platform independently, ensuring a successful outcome. The use of a ticketing system helped track progress and updates efficiently.
Customisation and configuration
Matthew mentions that while customisation was required to fit Pie Funds' specific processes, the ICS team provided support to plan the integration and data methodologies.
Customisable templates and out-of-the-box toolkits were available to facilitate the process.
Significant improvements and successes
Post-implementation, Pie Funds saw dramatic enhancements in their reporting processes, reducing the time to generate reports from days to minutes and providing richer data and insights for strategic decision-making.
The reduction in time spent on data manipulation allowed the team to focus more on analysis and improvements, adding significant value.
Unexpected benefits of ATHENA
The move to a centralized data store fostered a more cohesive and dynamic interaction among team members, leading to enhanced collective analytical capabilities and team synergy.
Challenges and learning curves
The primary challenge was adapting to the volume of functionalities within ATHENA. It required a mindset shift from manual data manipulation to automated database infrastructure. Once the learning curve was overcome, the team could spend more time on analysis and improvements.
Future prospects
Matthew expresses excitement about the future of data management and analytics technology, particularly the integration of AI and machine learning. Predictive analytics and deeper market insights have the potential to revolutionise investment strategies and risk controls.
Pie Funds' advice for other companies
For companies considering a platform like ATHENA, Matthew advises evaluating long-term value over immediate costs, looking for flexibility, scalability, and quality of customer support. The ability to integrate the platform with other tools and APIs is a significant advantage. Robust support and training resources are invaluable.
Emphasising cultural fit with the vendor is crucial. The ICS team’s ability to combine data-driven expertise with strong people skills and emotional intelligence was key to the successful partnership.
Full interview transcript
Myles Allan 0:08
Hi, I'm Myles Allan. I'm the founding partner of MOSAIC FSI and I'm joined today by Matt Cousins, Investment Analyst from Pie Funds.
We're having a quick chat around how Pie Funds have addressed investment analytics challenges and the solution set they've used to do this. Matt, just to kick off, can you tell us a little bit about your background and your role on the financial services industry?
Matthew Cousins 0:36
Thanks, Myles. I've been working in the finance industry for around five years now, I started my career at a large bank before transitioning to a wealth advisory company.
Currently I hold a position in funds management at Pie funds. It's been a really rewarding journey and I've grown to really appreciate the investigative and problem-solving nature of my role. I enjoy finding innovative ways to optimise processes and maximise the use of available technologies. I’m a big believer that efficiency is crucial, but not at the expense of quality.
In my current role at Pie funds, I focus on leveraging our investment data to streamline operations and enhance decision making capabilities. I'm excited for the future of investment management and the role of technology plays in shaping in the industry.
I've really enjoyed contributing to our business by leveraging those advancements that deliver the best possible results for our clients and contribute to the growth of Pie.
Myles Allan 1:44
Excellent. Can you describe your initial challenges or goals
that led you on the search for a data platform?
Matthew Cousins 1:53
One of the primary objectives was to establish a reliable and centralised source of truth for our investment data management. We wanted to reduce our reliance on third parties and take control of our data, giving us flexibility to decide which data points to use and how to use them in our decision-making processes.
We also recognised that building an enhanced data management system from scratch could lead to an over reliance on specialised skill sets such as advanced coding and database management, we wanted to strike a balance between having a necessary expertise and ensuring that our team could work collaboratively without being heavily dependent on a few individuals with niche technical skills.
This journey towards data independence has been challenging, but rewarding as it has helped us evolve and strengthen it our approach to investment management in an increasingly data-driven industry.
Myles Allan 3:09
And we [MOSAIC] are seeing that right across our whole client base. I think that if you're a funds management or wealth management provider, you've got some pretty key questions around what is my core business; is it picking stocks and delivering risk weighted returns aligned with client expectation or developing software and it should be a really easy question to answer.
Matthew Cousins 3:38
Absolutely.
Myles Allan 3:40
So I guess this is the crux of it. What platform did you choose and why? And how did it particularly stand out from the rest?
Matthew Cousins 3:53
After a thorough evaluation of various platforms, we ultimately chose ICS ATHENA for its comprehensive investment data management capabilities.
What truly set ATHENA apart for us was its powerful extract, transform, load functionality (ETL). This allowed us to create efficient connection management of data pipelines from various sources. A key feature here was the ability to map our own data connections such as APIs or FTP folders in the design. The ETL process for what would be edited to our database.
ATHENA’s ability to seamlessly integrate with our existing systems and handle a wide range of data formats was a crucial factor in our decision.
The platform enabled us to effortlessly consolidate data from multiple sources, including market data providers, proprietary databases, and alternative data into a unified and consistent format.
The centralised data repository became our single source of truth, eliminating data silos and ensuring that all teams work with accurate and up to date information.
What stood out about ICS was their deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by investment managers and their commitment to delivering a tailored solution in a standard environment.
The ATHENA platform was designed with the specific needs of investment firms in mind and that certainly comes across in its functionality and ease of use.
Also, the dedicated support team and the willingness to collaborate closely with us throughout the implementation process was also highly commutable.
Myles Allan 5:43
Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience around the implementation? How was it and, did you get the support that you anticipated during this phase? I understand that ICS are Australian based, did that provide any challenges relative to having the team based locally?
Matthew Cousins 5:59
The implementation of ATHENA was surprisingly smooth. I've worked on integrating new technologies previously and I knew that it's always challenging. However, this project wasn't as challenging as they have been in the past. ATHENA has a dedicated implementation & support team and they are based overseas in Australia, UK and US.
In the global world we live in today, it's quite easy and everyone's used to using Teams and similar video-based platforms for meetings and collaboration. The comprehensive training they gave alongside the implementation process and project management process it made all the difference.
The responsiveness was second to none, with same day responses being really helped in the manner in which we were able to integrate it [ATHENA] into our existing workflows without disrupting our day-to-day operations, which is always critical to any business, when bringing in new technologies.
We are constantly building out our database and it’s key for us to remain independent from our operational counterparties. The training that we received was very much focused on the Pie team being able to manage the platform on our own; building the knowledge for the team to manage our own files, data and configurations with a lens of how it all worked together, it was a great process.
The approach ICS take’s to the implementation project itself is unique, with a really strong focus on ensuring the entire team has momentum to ensure a successful outcome. They have a ticketing system embedded into the platform that was really good for tracking progress and updates on items and then completing them.
Myles Allan 8:13
Was there contention between configuration and customisation? Or were you pretty much able to use the ATHENA kit out-of-the-box or was customisation required?
Matthew Cousins 8:37
I think for any business they'll be customisation required. We have our [Pie Funds] way to do things. The process was more focused around an understanding of the platform and how we best make use of it.
The ICS team came over and spend a few days planning exactly how we were going to integrate our data into the platform, the different tables and systems we'd use and then all the different data methodologies that would be used. There were customisable templates, as well as some straight out-of-the-box toolkits that we were able to implement.
Myles Allan 9:17
It's always a positive if you can get 80/20, then you're doing pretty well.
Matthew Cousins 9:21
Usually that works, yeah.
Myles Allan 9:22
Yep, the key metric. So can you share a significant improvement or success story that's occurred as a result of implementing ATHENA in the Pie funds business?
Matthew Cousins 9:36
One of the most notable successes we had post implementation was the dramatic enhancement in our reporting processes. The reports that used to take days to compile were now generated within minutes with richer data and insights. This improvement is directly contributing to more timely and strategic investment decisions.
Myles Allan 10:01
Awesome. It's always one of those interesting points where now you've had all this time freed up, what are you doing with it? This was an opportunity to realise the value.
Matthew Cousins 10:13
Oh, one of the biggest positives for us is, now that you take away from all the data manipulation and cleaning, you can prioritise yourself so much more on the analysis or the improvements you can make. So yeah, it's an excellent value add.
Myles Allan 10:14
That would have been an expected benefit, but were there any unexpected benefits or outcomes you hadn't anticipated?
Matthew Cousins 10:37
Yeah, the collaborative use. Moving to a centralised data store allowed for a more cohesive and dynamic interaction among the team members, which lead to a synergy that elevated our collective analytical capabilities. The ability to see how someone might use something differently and share that within the team really brought the team together more cohesively.
Myles Allan 11:11
Excellent. Any challenges or learning curves you encountered while implementing and integrating the platform workflows?
Matthew Cousins 11:22
I'd say the primary challenge was adapting to the sheer volume of functionalities within ATHENA. In any business, I think you will face technological challenges. Time taken to learn the different functions, the usual learning curves. It's been a mindset shift from manual data manipulation to utilising automated database infrastructure. But once we climbed that learning curve, we have been able to spend more time on analysis and improvements then those routine functions.
Myles Allan 12:04
So it’s been a whole productivity uplift then?
Matthew Cousins 12:08
Definitely.
Myles Allan 12:09
It’s great to hear that in this case the promise of uplift with technology was delivered, which is not always the case. So looking forward, what are you excited about when it comes to the future of data management or analytics technology and how this can help you in your role?
Matthew Cousins 12:30
With ATHENA We’ve been able to build out a stable orchestration process to automatically acquire, validate, transform and normalise our various investment data sources into a complete database. We are constantly updating it to the latest data points that we require from it.
Into the future we plan on utilising that nice clean data set more for analysis and the integration of AI or machine learning, that excites me the most! The prospect of predictive analytics and more profound market insights this year has the potential to revolutionise investment strategies and risk controls across our business.
Myles Allan 13:24
I’m assuming those changes should be particularly exciting for the risk and compliance team as well?
Matthew Cousins 13:34
Yes, indeed. The compliance team access the same data as the rest of the team so we are all aligned.
Myles Allan 13:39
The last thing we were going to chat about here is, what advice would you give to other companies considering a platform like ATHENA as a solution for their own challenges?
Matthew Cousins 14:04
Yeah. For those who are in the position we were in just over 12 months ago and considering a platform like ATHENA, I would advise evaluating the long-term value over the immediate costs.
Look for the flexibility, scalability and quality of customer support that we received with ATHENA, ensure that the platform aligns with your strategic objectives and your team is ready to embrace new technology.
In this case, the ability to integrate the chosen platform with other tools and APIs is a significant advantage.
Also consider the support and training provided by the team behind the platform. A robust support system and training resources are invaluable.
Myles Allan 14:52
One of the things that we advise customers on is to make sure you've got the right cultural fit with anybody you're partnering with. Is there any comment you'd make about the cultural fit between yourselves and ICS and when that became apparent in the process?
Matthew Cousins 15:18
I joined Pie after ICS has been selected, but I'd say that data and database management is a highly specialised skill.
At times it can very complex, but the ICS team really broke down the barriers to bring the human element, people as well as being data-driven, which I think was key when you're spending a lot of time with the project team, working through your issues as well as working on ways to improve things.
Having those people skills and the emotional intelligence to be able to deal with that, as well as the really gritty database fundamentals as well, they ticked all the boxes there, definitely.
Myles Allan 16:02
Those are key skills for any vendor. And then to be able to follow through with the value add once implemented, it's absolutely critical.
I think that pretty much covers everything. I really appreciate your comments Matt, really insightful and thanks very much for your time.
Matthew Cousins 16:38
No worries at all, Myles.
About Mosaic FSI
We are an independent New Zealand-owned consultancy. We have been providing pragmatic advice and sustainable operational solutions to the financial services industry since 2010. We have the knowledge and capability to deliver the strategically-aligned, sustainable solutions our clients need to succeed in today’s inherently dynamic and increasingly competitive market. We help clients realise cost efficiencies, improve processes, lower costs and better customer outcomes.
About Pie Funds
Pie Funds is a boutique KiwiSaver, investment funds and wealth manager with over $2b funds under management. Established in 2007, Pie has a range of specialised actively managed KiwiSaver and investment funds. Its fund managers focus on selecting high-growth, quality companies with great management and competitive advantage. The Pie team have an absolute commitment to providing strong performance, excellent client communication and service.
About ICS
ICS is a leading global SaaS provider for investment data management. The company helps organisations who want to accelerate progress, mitigate risk and optimise efficiency for all stakeholders, transforming the way clients manage and access data into a frictionless, productive and rewarding experience.
For more information about ATHENA, visit https://www.icsidm.com/athena
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