What Do We Have To Do To Get All Those Wonderful Toys?

Collaboration in the investment office

By Ken Akoundi and Amit Sinha

“Where Does He Get All
Those Wonderful Toys?”
-The Joker

There has been a heavy emphasis on the use of quantitative analytics for the modern investment office. This modern era was ushered with advances such as Modern Portfolio Theory and CAPM, starting in the 1950’s. In the 1990’s the advent of standardized quantitative risk metrics further cemented the needs for the use of quantitative measures in the investment office. The growth of quantitative analytics businesses is a testimony to the importance and acceptance of these concepts.

With the 2000’s new problems began to emerge. The volume of information caused all professionals to begin searching for technologies that helped them better store and retrieve needed knowledge (typically documents). Investment officers were not immune to this deluge.

In an attempt to make this more manageable, since 2010, workflow management concepts have emerged as the most recent subject of interest for investment offices. This new focus has been aided by the new crop of technologies that have evolved a concept, with roots in the 1900’s Industrial Revolution, and applied it to the modern workforce.