MANY FIRMS still struggle to obtain timely and reliable data for sales and asset tracking as well as wholesaler compensation purposes.
UNFORTUNATELY, even in today’s high tech world, some firms still seem to face data integrity and data quality issues (e.g. top performing reps not identified, reporting incorrect sales data in territories).
UNRELIABLE sales and asset data can hinder the sales and marketing team’s effectiveness and a firm’s competitiveness.
SINCE most asset management firms obtain sales and asset data from a wide variety of sources such as transfer agents and intermediaries, including omnibus sub accounts, it is critical that rigorous data management and data cleaning controls are in place to ensure accurate and reliable sales and asset data.
TYPICALLY, asset management firms will perform a data cleansing, data scrubbing or data stewardship process to ensure accurate sales and asset tracking and reporting. This process requires resources with a highly specialized body of knowledge to understand the details of the various codes associated with the sales transactions in combination with some good old-fashioned sleuthing to research and investigate incongruities, discrepancies and issues with trades. Typically, this is a labor-intensive effort which requires making calls to intermediaries and knowing the tricks of the trade to be effective. To complicate the data cleansing process, there is a significant turnover of reps among firms and offices so information that is received on the daily trade files is changed frequently and it is imperative to have accurate codes for the reps to ensure the trades are being accounted for appropriately for sales tracking and reporting purposes.
HISTORICALLY, to obtain accurate and reliable sales data, firms had to employ a small army of individuals to review and scrub the transactions to ensure the business had accurate information for sales reporting purposes. However, today many firms have been realizing the benefits of outsourcing the data cleansing role to reduce expenses and to re-focus resources on core business activities.
FORTUNATELY, by outsourcing your data cleansing service, it provides clients with a hands-off approach to managing the data cleansing function and significantly improves the quality of the sales and asset data. As data comes in from transfer agents, supermarket platforms, or other intermediaries, your data cleansing service will perform activities on behalf of its clients such as:
- o Establishing clearing and executing firm relationships;
- o Ensures that data from each imported file is properly loaded;
- o Identities and reconciles all missing code values and transaction records through the intermediaries & transfer agents;
- o Manages team reps creation;
- o Reviews each trade and asset record to ensure that there is a proper firm, office, rep, name and address attached to it;
- o Performs operational support to obtain missing data by making calls and researching trades;
- o Performs analysis to ensure there are no duplicate firms, office and reps;
- o Reconciles omnibus accounts with the intermediaries;
- o Pulling sales data downloads from various portals including (Charles Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade)
THIS MEANS THAT you have complete and reliable sales and asset data. This approach allows firms to focus resources on reviewing the results of the data collection and data cleansing processes for sales and marketing purposes rather than investing resources and effort into cleansing the data.
About SalesFocus Solutions
MARS provides sales and marketing teams analytical sales data they can use to manage wholesaler effectiveness and territory penetration by comparing fund company sales and marketing activities to sales flows, assets, and market share. MARS provides a seamless integration with third party data such as Discovery and Coates Analytics and combines it with MARS CRM activities and cleansed sales data in a central database.
MARS offers a comprehensive solution that can be tailored to meet specific needs of asset management firms of all sizes. Our experienced team with industry knowledge will help you manage existing business and increase market share.
To learn more about SalesFocus Solutions, a Service Provider of SFN, view SalesFocus Solution's complete profile.
