Dominic Dowd recently finished a project with a large asset owner to help select a best in class reconciliation tool to support the success of their new target operating model. While this is a competitive field of service providers, our process resulted in a preferred vendor which met the selection criteria, and our client is pleased with the outcome.
In the current state, our client uses a number of inhouse tools, excel spreadsheets and manual processes to perform position, cash, reference data and other reconciliations between systems. As part of the engagement we drafted the requirements, completed a market scan of 30 service providers, defined selection criteria to narrow the market scan to a long list, and from a long list to a short list. We issued and scored the RFP digitally with our short listed vendors, and finalized our decision using interactive vendor workshops with our clients. Our recommendation was endorsed by our Project Working Group.
The primary lesson learned is that a well defined and adaptable selection process with focused, expert resources is critical to achieving expected business outcomes. Additionally, use of machine learning to interpret file structure, map and enrich data fields, create matching rules and automatically allocate exceptions is prevalent among the market leaders, making the process more efficient and effective for asset managers and asset owners.
Shoreline has helped asset owners and managers with more than 60 vendor selection processes globally. If you need help with a reconciliation (or other service provider) selection process, please contact us.