More asset managers are naming manual processes as their biggest back-office challenge that last year, according to a Confluence Asset Management Survey
The survey showed that 22 percent of asset managers saw their reliance on manual processes as their number one challenge today, up from 14 percent in 2016 and 12 percent in 2008.
Overall, the survey showed that manual processes now rank second only to asset managers concerns about data accuracy and consistency issues, which stood at 24 percent.
Meanwhile, 90 percent of all respondents worry about manual processes and spreadsheets affecting the ability to control errors.
Similarly, 83 percent expressed a concern about the ability to control costs for replacing manual processes with automated technology.
Centralising fund data was the third-most cited goal in this year's survey, with 42 percent of fund managers saying it was a major priority.
More than three quarters of survey respondents (86 percent) said it was extremely or very important to centralise in order to improve data accuracy and consistency. This was up from 80 percent in 2016.
Just over 80 percent of asset managers were concerned about their ability to minimise reporting errors, while those concerned about meeting regulatory demands rose to 76 percent, up from 70 percent in 2016.
Todd Moyer, COO at Confluence, said: "While the concerns of the asset management industry in 2017 are largely consistent with what we found in 2016, the rise in urgency on display is what really explains the transformation we have seen taking place this year."
He added: “Our survey respondents clearly see that the time for automation and technical innovation has arrived. Heightened regulatory requirements are turning a pent-up desire to automate into a need to automate. And technology innovation in the regtech space is enabling this fundamental transformation in back offices across the industry."
.jpg)