New Beginnings: Investment Operations Leaders Discuss Life Post-Lockdown
Kaizen recently hosted an Investment Operations Leaders’ Roundtable at which industry leaders exchanged their COVID-19 experiences with a view to navigating the future. The session was chaired by Naresh Subramaniam, Director – Investment Advisory at PwC.
In this article, I summarise key takeaways from the discussion.
Leadership in the transition to working from home
There was naturally a level of uncertainty and adjustment in the beginning, but operations teams adapted quickly to working from home. Leaders were challenged with tough decisions across cost containment, retaining staff, alleviating their stress and keeping teams together as everyone nose-dived into working from home; all of this compounded by increased market volatility.
While in the initial weeks many internal forums and collaborations encouraged the human element and establish operating rhythms, organisations now have largely settled into a ‘new look’ business as usual. There was agreement among participants that staff wellbeing continued to be a priority, including ensuring initiatives for rest and relaxation.
Relationships with investment teams
Working face to face with investment teams is an important element of investment operations. There was some trepidation going into the current environment on how relationships would fare, however using technology as an enabler, leaders have observed that front office teams have operated with a great degree of trust with the middle and back offices.
Business travel
Geographical boundaries have now been eliminated from the relationship equation and finance teams are noting this closely given the previously large budgets on travel-related expenses.
Impact from service providers
Impact on business continuity within operations very much depends on the set up, security and preparedness of custodians, third party administrators and other vendors such as operations systems suppliers. Certain firms with a wholly outsourced and offshored model have seen a lesser impact, with exceptions where operations are based in countries where the impact of COVID-19 and restrictions has been severe, in particular if they have weak infrastructure.
The consensus was that there has not been any loss of service so far from different service providers, but all acknowledged that it’s early days and that they are keeping a close watch to ensure there isn’t degradation of standards down the line.
New beginnings
It has taken a pandemic to drive and accelerate change and to evolve from antiquated business practices including faxes and cheques, wet signatures to digital and the urgent review of supporting legacy products. There has been notable focus however on maintaining controls on privacy and data; with impacts likely being dealt within GS007 audits and other control reports, reviews etc. covering the domestic and global operations of the various service providers.
Concern was also felt for next steps to evolve reporting and overcome the need for as many on-site visits, bringing in more controls. Organisations that were already adopting computerised processes, reported a positive reception of online portals by financial advisors.
Transition back to the office and what does the new office look like?
A variety of approaches are being considered as some employees are keen to return to the offices while others are more hesitant. Considerations for phasing the workforce back into offices include limiting the numbers of staff in office at any point of time, reducing office space all together and even questioning the need for the exclusive “Collins Street” address are being thought of.
While organisations face logistical challenges given social distancing norms in the near term, the bigger challenge being discussed is that of modelling out what the new normal will look like.
Conclusion
With the working environment on the precipice of change, new opportunities to broaden talent pools, especially for increasingly hybrid positions within operations is imminent. Location preferences may also not be the deciding factor anymore; one Melbourne-based client recently hired, onboarded and integrated a promising candidate from Darwin.
As the new normal unfolds, it will be interesting to see how businesses recover ground, how new initiatives are approached and brakes are released for things that have been put on hold. The landscape of operations is poised to change with already evolving hybrid roles compounded by shifts in how the workforce will operate.
On behalf of Kaizen Recruitment, I would like to thank Naresh Subramaniam for his preparatory efforts and for chairing the session. Thank you sincerely to our guests for their participation and generous exchange of ideas and opinions.
Regards,
Nupur Gill – Principal Consultant
Kaizen Recruitment specialises financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting and insurance. We are based in Melbourne and Sydney. For assistance or further information please telephone our office at +61 3 9095 7157 or submit an online form.
Like what you see?
Please feel welcome to join
Kaizen Recruitment’s mailing list
