Crescendo Consulting

NICSA 2011 Observations – Miami, FL Doral Resort

crescendo — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:19:09 +0000

Thomas Kaminsky commenting on several key points presented at this years NICSA Conference in Miami. Check out the video and please provide your comments. Thanks.

NICSA is the leading provider of independent education and networking forums to professionals in the global investment management community.

NICSA was established in 1962 as a forum for operations and shareholder servicing professionals in the mutual fund industry. Today, NICSA is a network of nearly 10,000 business professionals from within the investment management industry and the firms that support the industry, including mutual fund complexes, investment management companies, custodian banks, transfer agents and independent providers of specialized products and services. The Association consists of more than 250 corporate member firms with over 600 member offices operating in major financial centers around the world.

Tip of The Spear

crescendo — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:07:47 +0000

Thank you Yoh for the invitation to provide comments and insight as a guest blogger. What follows is an excerpt from the full blog post on The Seamless Workforce.

Today I present you with a guest post from a long-time friend and former colleague, Thomas Kaminsky. Tom is the founder and Managing Director of Crescendo Consulting Solutions. I’m delighted that he has agreed to share with us his thoughts and recommendations for human capital management in the new economy. ~ Doug Lubin

Here is a scenario taking place right now in organizations developing their 2011 budgets: Hiring managers (HM) are meeting with their HR business partner (HRBP) to discuss staffing plans and their resulting financial impact. I can just hear the conversation now … click to read more http://bit.ly/canA2O

NICSA Conference Highlights IT & Operational Challenges with new SEC / Regulatory requirements

crescendo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:32:18 +0000

I attended the East Coast NICSA meeting in Boston on Thursday. The agenda was hyper-focused on the current regulatory environment. New / in process SEC requirements (e.g., Rule 12b-1; 12b -2, etc.) have far reaching IT and operational impact on the investment management community. These pending changes will take an incredible investment of time, money and people. It will be interesting to see how much the industry lobby influences the SEC; managing expectations and instituting rigor while being fair to the amount of investment and timing required to achieve compliance will be key.
By Thomas Kaminsky, Managing Director

Invest in an Outside Advisor to Navigate the Outsourcing Process

crescendo — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:51:09 +0000

We continue to strongly believe engaging an agnostic third party advisor is critical to help clients – and suppliers – to navigate the complexity and multi-functional requirements inherent in the outsourcing process. Your people have day jobs and likely do not have the experience to initiate, manage, and implement a high risk transaction of this nature. In our experience, investing in a third party with the experience and market insight from the earliest decision point (e.g., does it make sense for us to outsource?) through execution / conversion / implementation minimizes risk, shortens the implementation timeline and enables buyers and suppliers to shed costs and realize revenue earlier, respectively. It is also healthy for both buyer and supplier to share costs of the third party.

Investment Management Outsourcing Shifts to Smaller Proof of Concept Strategies as an Alternative to Full-Scale Liftouts

crescendo — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:15:04 +0000

In the past, implementing a full operational lift-out – consisting of “lifting out” the client organization’s people, process and technology and dropping them into the outsourced supplier’s existing infrastructure and organization – was the most popular and preferred method for executing large investment operations outsourcing deals. This method made sense to both buyers and sellers. Buyers shed staff and redundancy costs, infrastructure investment, reduced its real estate portfolio, etc. Sellers gained immediate technical, operational, and human capital expertise, achieved rapid scale in their offering as well as market recognition. The lift out method still may make sense to certain buyers, but many now are seeking a more conservative or ala carte menu of services from suppliers. This modularized “pilot” or “proof of concept” approach enables buyers to “wade into” the outsourcing waters gaining proof of concept with a product, process or IT component rather than give a provider the master set of keys to the entire operation. This is even more important in today’s higher operating risk environment. Buyers have looked at the track record of many providers’ ability to assimilate operations with limited success. In our view, outsourcing vanilla operational functions where providers have proven success and that are lower in risk – such as reconciliation or transaction dissemination – is fast becoming the new model of entry for many investment managers and hedge funds. Suppliers are changing their sales, marketing, implementation and relationship management models to support this shift.

Bob Childs

Service Level Agreements are Critical to a Healthy and Successful Outsourcing Arrangement

crescendo — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:11:00 +0000

Crescendo continues to advise clients that Service Level Agreements (SLA) and supporting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are critical in establishing and managing a successful outsourcing arrangement. As we have witnessed first-hand, after the signing fanfare ends and the dust settles, the SLA is what keeps the relationship together. Within the investment management outsourcing movement, SLAs are now being signed as a core component of the deal / contract; not as an addendum or stand-alone document. Speaking at the recent NICSA Investment Operations Seminar in New York, Steve Crosby of PwC put it best, “Service Level Agreements are no longer an afterthought in these large, complex deals. They are now ‘Annex A’ of the Contract.”

We’d love to hear from others. Comments and questions welcome. Thanks.

Bob Childs

Managing the VMS ERP Integration Challenge: Crescendo & ProcureStaff Co-Authored White Paper

crescendo — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:03:48 +0000

In our work advising clients on the merits of implementing a vendor management system (VMS) for contingent labor, we are continuously challenged to integrate the VMS with the client’s legacy enterprise relationship platform (ERP). The white paper Doug Lubin and I co-authored with members of the ProcureStaff team highlights this challenge and steps that can be taken by VMS and ERP suppliers as well as the client to ensure an appropriate level of due diligence, process mapping, change management and integration in order to mitigate risk and minimize processing errors. I would encourage companies who are struggling with the VMS – ERP integration challenge to read this paper.

We would welcome any and all feedback! Thank you.

Thomas Kaminsky

New White Paper: Integration of VMS and ERP

crescendo — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:40:36 +0000

The Importance of Strong Integration between VMS and ERP Systems for Human Capital Management

All services procurement Vendor Management System (VMS) suppliers promise smooth and comprehensive integration with prospective clients’ Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms. Yet too often, an organization implements a VMS solution only to discover significant shortcomings in the integration, yielding exposure to risks in such areas as regulatory compliance, cost avoidance, governance and overall program performance. While all mainstream VMS solutions can legitimately claim some measure of integration capacity………[Full White-Paper]

Boston and New York This Week

crescendo — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:15:23 +0000

Crescendo’s in Boston and New York City this week meeting with partners and clients. We’d love to connect with any of our friends if you are in town. Make it a great week!

Can We Get Back to Doing Business Please!

crescendo — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:55:29 +0000

We have reached the midpoint of 2010 and what have we learned? Markets are still skittish, housing continues to drag, jobs are scarce, health-care costs continue to spiral, and we are now faced with an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions that will affect our lives for years to come. With that said, we continue to be bullish on 2010… but with one glaring requirement. Can we get back to doing business, please?

We are experiencing buyer apprehension mostly due to market volatility. Several clients and prospects are concerned with expenses. Others (the majority) have cash on hand – but want to hold out until they get a better handle on where the markets will go… So, if markets tumble, cash on hand with a vigorous expense management program will help ease the burden of a strong downturn. Capital expenditures will remain on hold. If markets trend upward, in my view, cash on hand will be freed up (ever so slowly) to invest in capital projects late 3Q / early 4Q 2010.

As a company of entrepreneurs who take educated risks, our challenge to businesses big and small in the market is: When will you get back to doing business in this New Normal? Being complacent or stuck in neutral does not help anyone in this economy. Doing business sometimes means taking a risk. Invest your capital. Empower your management. Innovate. Create. Execute. Deliver. Can we get back to doing business, please?!