Asset Management Digital Readiness Survey: Teenage Angst to Coming of Age

The global events of the past 3 years have dramatically reshaped how Asset Managers operate and interact with clients. Digitisation, in all its flavours, has been pivotal to enabling these changes, featuring as a key investment area for Asset Manager worldwide.

In Alpha FMC’s 2022 Asset Management Digital Readiness Survey, we collated views from 40 Managers across the globe, with a combined £22 trillion AUMA. The overarching message from our results is that while Digital remains a focal point, firms need to address a number of challenges in order to see a return on their investments and to help their digitisation efforts ‘come of age’.

A Story of Two Halves

In this year’s survey, we saw two competing views emerging

• On the one hand, there is a positive trend in a number of indicators. The perceived importance, level of funding, and degree of client expectations for Digital have all moved upwards. For example, 97% of respondents say that Digitisation is a top or high priority item on their overall ExCo agenda.

• On the other hand, the overall Digital Maturity levels have not moved dramatically. 63% of firms still categorise themselves as “Getting Organised” and say their ability to execute is a key factor preventing them from maturing. Also, there is the recognition that client expectations (especially in areas such as ESG) are rapidly evolving, and digital solutions will need to be available sooner rather than later.

Addressing the Challenges That Can Inhibit Progress

To achieve their Digital ambitions, firms need to tackle five key challenges:

Looking at How “Fast Followers” are Building Digital Capabilities  

From our findings, we can see that those who are making the most progress have invested in capabilities which allow them to:

How Firms are Thinking About the Next Stage of their Digital Journey

Taking these points in account, firms are thinking about their strategies for the next 2-3 years and refreshing their plans. In doing this, they need to ask four key questions:

Firms need to focus on the leadership roles required to address these questions, and how to galvanise the “coalition of the willing” (e.g., leaders from Digital, Marketing, Technology, Data & Operations) around a strategy and plan. This will drive both the functional and  cultural changes required within the business. Top-down support from the CEO & ExCo is a vital part of this cultural shift.

In Conclusion

It is clear that Digitisation as a topic has had to grow up quickly within the Asset Management industry. This is not only in terms of how it is defined, but also in the way it is introduced and embedded into a firm.

The “Forced Experiment” of the Coronavirus pandemic has taught us that this is now the norm and not the exception, so Managers will have to play catch up in the next 1-2 years.

This calls for skilful leadership to paint the vision and bring people along on the journey, paired with strong execution so that firms can maximise the benefits of their digitisation initiatives.

This continues to make it an exciting time for those leading the Digital agenda across Asset Managers; firms who navigate this successfully will gain a competitive advantage.

If you would like to see more of the findings, please click here to receive the full survey results report. Please see our contact details below if you would like to speak to a member of the Alpha Digital & Agile Transformation practice.