It’s All About The Data: Two Use Cases to Help Pension Fund Managers Gain a Competitive Edge

Data is Gold

Competition in the investment world is fierce. Because of this, most fund managers are looking to:

• Differentiate themselves from the pack
• Be more predictive when it comes to the markets and their portfolios
• Work smarter, faster, and more efficiently
• Ensure a high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) score

The key to achieving all of these is data. It’s the most valuable currency for investment and pension fund managers today. That’s because, from data, you can gain deep business insights that help you make more accurate and intelligent decisions, operate more effectively, ensure compliance, and enhance the customer experience.

Modernize your data estate

However, it’s not just about collecting the data. To capitalize on it, you have to find and use the data easily. This means having a unified repository, connected systems, tools to automate and manage, and the ability for everyone to access and holistically view the data from where ever they are working.

Unfortunately, many legacy data platforms can’t support this new way of doing business. This is where a modern data estate comes in. It replaces your outdated, disparate systems and servers with a centralized and secure data environment powered by the Azure cloud, enterprise automation, and analytics.

Modernizing this way provides the infrastructure, access, scalability, and tool support you need to operationalize your data, turn it into powerful insights, and gain a competitive advantage.

Generate Value with Proactive Insights

After upgrading your data platform, the way is paved to take your data to the next level — with modern tools transforming big data into big insights. Tools such as:

• Data science and ML — to reduce time to store, process, and access data; extract knowledge from data in any form; and provide predictive, actionable insights in minutes
• IoT and advanced analytics — to speed and simplify making sense of large pools of data so you can get the big picture of your data and leverage it to benefit your business
• AI and NLP — to extract contextual meaning and sentiment from all types of data — including voice, video, and text — so you can gain more value from it and be more responsive to your customers

When used correctly these tools convert countless hours of manual labor cleaning data into data-driven decision-making.

Tap Into Learned Expertise

At Hitachi Solutions, we have guided many companies through digital transformation, including strategizing and migrating to a modern data platform. We understand the degree of reliance businesses have on data, which is why our clients consider us a trusted advisor.

Over almost two decades and thousands of implementations, we have gained a strong foundation for solving enterprise challenges with innovative, industry-focused technology. Along the way, we’ve learned some specific tips and tricks for helping fund managers generate even more value from their data and analytics initiatives.

Below are two widespread use cases we’ve developed for helping investment and pension companies optimize the value of a modern data environment.

Use Case #1: Quant Accelerator

We’ve found most quantitative analysts today are still working in the stone age. They tend to be isolated, doing statistics and analysis on their laptops and using outdated methodologies and tools. This incurs unforeseen technical debt, slows them down, and ultimately is a more costly way to do business. Moreover, instead of focusing their energy on innovation or decision-making, they waste their time manually sifting for the information required to perform their job.

We’ve got a modern solution that lifts your analysts out of the stone age and simplifies and speeds their access to the tools and information required to be efficient, productive, and predictive. Designed to leverage the power of the Azure cloud, our Quant Accelerator is built on the industry-leading Databricks platform to unify all data and analytics workloads and establish a collaborative, performant, and cost-effective analytics platform.

With our Quant Accelerator, your portfolio team can leverage the Python programming language and other advanced analytics tools in the cloud to efficiently:

• Centralize data, analysis, and reporting
• Overcome real-time and big data hurdles
• Access self-service predictive analytics
• Leverage your data to gain actionable insights and outpace the competition

Use Case #2: Data Democratization

As we already mentioned, most investment funds are hungry for good, clean data to gain that competitive advantage. But many struggle with legacy systems, processes, and mindsets that can make this difficult.

We’ve developed a solution that enables users to find, share, and use valuable, trustworthy data faster and easier. Our Data Democratization accelerator makes your data work for you! Built with Microsoft Azure Purview, the solution:

• Automates discovery, lineage, and classification of your data
• Facilitates a better understanding of the movement and usage of sensitive data in your organization
• Integrates with a wide array of popular tools such as SQL Server, Databricks, Snowflake, Azure Synapse and Power BI for a birds-eye view of your data estate

This solution helps you create a holistic, up-to-date map of your data landscape so you can break down silos, unify governance, and maximize the business value of your data assets. This solution helps you break down information silos and derive actionable business value from your data.

Want to Learn More?

If you’d like more information about these use cases, Databricks or Azure Purview, or a modern data estate, just reach out. We’ve got a host of advisory services, assessments, envisioning workshops, and webinars with more details.

Your competitors are starting to use cloud and big data tools to differentiate themselves from the competition. Don’t let them get the edge on you! Contact us today.