Processes Processes

An investment office is more than the sum of its processes.

By Ken Akoundi and Amit Sinha

If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process,
you don’t know what you’re doing.
- W Edwards Deming

Although 100% of the revenues of an investment office are derived from investing, author and commentator Ben Carlson[1] observed that when investment offices discuss their problems and issues, markets, investments, and asset allocation only play a small part in the conversation. Greater focus is on organizational challenges such as governance, communication, and collaboration. These challenges can be traced back to the basic concept of a “process.”

The operations of an investment office can be viewed as an amalgamation of processes. Well-defined processes usually lend themselves to be represented in form of workflows, and systemization in general. However, a typical investment office tends to have a combination of well-defined and not-so-well defined processes. We begin by outlining some of the typical processes in an investment office.

The primary function of an investment office is to generate Alpha. This is achieved using decisions in-line with the objectives and guidelines provided by the ultimate owner of capital, or their appointed investment boards/committees, with…