New Developments in the Outsourcing Model


Date: July 2009
Author: John Robertshaw
Price: £1750 to non-members of the Investit Intelligence Member service


In January 2006, Investit produced a research report called 'Outsourcing Mid-Term Report – a time for reflection'. This was followed by ‘Asset Servicing...Value added for whom?’ a year later. Both studies concluded that the investment management business was becoming much more complex and increasing the demands and expectations of its service providers.

The foundations of the providers’ services were based upon core operations activities supported by some banking, accounting and systems capabilities. But increasingly managers were expecting their service providers to extend capability along the value chain to incorporate middle office processing and support activities. This area of operations outsourcing, while developing rapidly, was viewed as an immature product in our earlier studies.

For this study, we wanted to see how far the outsourcing market has developed and whether it has progressed to a level of maturity which persuades investment managers to re-appraise its applicability for their organisation. Furthermore, we wanted to ask what influence the current economic environment and the seismic events of the credit crunch has had on the market for third party administration services.

In reviewing the progress of those transactions identified in 2005, we were encouraged to see that most were still in place and many had bedded down into an acceptable level of production running. Most providers now have their strategic solutions in place, although clients remain to be transitioned across from their ‘lift-out’ solutions. Considerable progress has been made in addressing the series of issues and concerns that we identified.

Fast forwarding to 2009 we identified a slowdown in the pace of new mandates but no further terminations. Additional business was arising through manager consolidation. By contrast the buoyancy of fund administration outsourcing continued. The growth in maturity was noticeable across the piece. Clients and providers alike are showing far more realism in terms of their expectations from an outsourcing transaction and what can be delivered.

Table of contents


Management Summary 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Background 5
1.2 Methodology 6
1.3 Terminology 7
2 Summary of the Previous Papers 9
2.1 Investment operations outsourcing - landscape in 2005 10
3 Market Maturity in 2005 – How Far Have We Come? 13
3.1 Investment operations outsourcing - landscape in 2009 14
3.2 The maturity of the deal process 16
3.3 Maturity of the clients’ approach 19
3.4 Maturity of the provider’s approach 21
3.5 Lessons learnt 23
3.6 What makes a good relationship? 27
4 Market Maturity in 2009 – Business Opportunities 31
4.1 Impact of the economic climate 32
4.2 Opportunities for providers 33
4.3 Market disruptions 36
5 How will the Market Develop – Provider Consolidation? 39
5.1 Consolidation in the market for investor services 40
5.2 Pressures on the Service Providers 44
6 Longer-term Concerns for the Outsourcing Market 45
6.1 Investment managers’ concerns 46
6.2 Service providers’ concerns 49
7 Conclusions 51
8 Index 53
8.1 Index to figures, charts and tables 54

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