Is a SSOT the Silver Bullet COOs at Asset Managers Need?

At FINBOURNE, we speak to COOs from a wide range of Asset Managers almost every day. From the largest multinationals to small bespoke firms, nearly all of them tell us the same thing—their clients and internal leadership teams want more access to their underlying data, and they want it now!

For some COOs, the priority is delivering data to clients in a timely and accessible format. Investors now expect real-time information on their holdings and exposures, often in custom formats and at irregular intervals.

The same can be said for internal teams. Traditional start-of-day and end-of-day reports no longer cut it. Today’s stakeholders require the latest data in real time, along with the ability to drill down into specific details such as open or closed orders, trade statuses, or positions by strategy.

Regardless of their specific challenges, almost every COO agrees that while these demands are reasonable, the limitations of current technology and manual processes are creating a significant operational burden.

To illustrate the challenge, let’s imagine an important investor, with exposures across public and private market portfolios, requests an ad-hoc report detailing all their holdings and valuations at short notice. To meet this request, the operations team must manually source all relevant data—often from separate systems for each asset class—identify and resolve discrepancies, combine the data with the latest pricing and valuation information (which can be particularly challenging for private market assets), and present it in the required format, all while ensuring both accuracy and timeliness.

As these requests become more frequent, COOs are quickly realising that this siloed, manual way of working is neither efficient nor sustainable, and they are seeking a long-term solution.

The Silver Bullet: Single Source of Truth (SSOT) 

• A Single Source of Truth (SSOT) is a software platform that centralises all your data and distributes it to downstream systems, teams, and users in a controlled manner.
• Need information about a portfolio’s current value, composition, and performance for your IBOR? Connect it to the SSOT, and all relevant holdings and pricing data will be at your fingertips. Need to run a risk analysis across multiple asset classes? The SSOT holds your most up-to-date risk data for each asset, ready for analysis.

How Does That Help COOs? 
Centralising data in an SSOT provides two key benefits:

• It eliminates silos between teams, data stores, and systems, unifying all your data in one place for easy access. This removes unnecessary barriers and greatly enhances the speed at which users and systems can access information.
• It ensures that everyone is working with the same up-to-date information. No more conflicting reports, duplicated data, or lengthy reconciliations—just one clear version of the truth that everyone can rely on.
  These two attributes make the SSOT a silver bullet. It’s not just another tool—it’s a game-changer that allows you to truly get to grips with your data, whatever its source and purpose.

Let’s go back to our previous example, where an important investor is demanding a short-notice bespoke report. Forget the manual workaround. By using an SSOT, the team can quickly access a single data set, extract the relevant information, and generate a report in mere minutes, without the need for complex manual interventions and data manipulation.

What Do I Need to Create an SSOT? 
To be truly effective, an SSOT must deliver several core capabilities:

1. Connects to every data source in your organisation: An SSOT must integrate with all data sources—internal systems, third-party providers, market data feeds, and fund administrators—ensuring comprehensive coverage and eliminating data silos.
2. Provides high-quality, reliable data: The SSOT must deliver data that is accurate, consistent, and trustworthy, with error identification capabilities and a reconciliation and exception management process to ensure data integrity.
3. Masters this data to eliminate inconsistencies: The SSOT must ensure that every piece of data is correctly mapped and standardised. This means not only aligning valuations but also incorporating attributes like risk ratings and ESG scores to provide a unified view of every fund, portfolio, and security.
4. Feeds data downstream to systems and end users: The SSOT must seamlessly integrate with downstream systems such as IBORs, PMS, OMS, compliance tools, accounting systems, and client-facing portals, ensuring all users have access to the most current and relevant data.

How Can FINBOURNE Help You Create an SSOT? 
FINBOURNE’s EDM+ provides organisations with the essential capabilities to establish a robust SSOT. Acting as the backbone of your data management, EDM+ ensures that all your data—from internal systems, third-party sources, and private market information—is ingested, cleaned, mastered, and ready for use. FINBOURNE’s EDM+ is unique in that it:

• Doesn’t need a “big bang” project: FINBOURNE’s solution integrates seamlessly with your current infrastructure. There’s no need for an overhaul—our system slots into your existing technology stack, minimising disruption and ensuring a smooth transition to a more efficient data landscape.
• Provides real-time data: Using advanced data virtualisation technology, FINBOURNE’s EDM+ is updated as soon as new information becomes available. This ensures that downstream teams and systems have access to the latest information with virtually no time lag.
• Supports both public and private market assets: FINBOURNE handles data for all asset classes in a single system. From equities to private credit, EDM+ presents each asset’s core data attributes side by side for easy analysis and interrogation.

Ultimately, FINBOURNE solves your fundamental data problems, allowing you and your team to focus on providing the best possible service to your clients and end users.

Conclusion 
In a landscape where operational efficiency and data mastery are paramount, a robust SSOT is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. FINBOURNE’s solution offers the flexibility, scalability, and real-time insights needed to give COOs full control over their data landscape, enabling more strategic decisions and reducing risk.

If you’re looking to solve the data chaos within your organisation, FINBOURNE’s SSOT is the silver bullet that will help you achieve operational excellence. Get in touch with our team to learn more.