Case Study
Investment advisor achieves streamlined manager research and enhanced collaboration with Bipsync
Managing long-term, diverse portfolios requires not only specialized insights but also streamlined tools for research. By implementing Bipsync, this investment advisory firm was able to streamline their manager research process, enhance collaboration across teams, and improve user satisfaction with the intuitive platform.
Headquarter
USA
Firm Type
Investment Advisor
Founded
1988
No. of Employees
130+
About the Firm
The firm is a full-service investment advisory with over 30 years of experience, specializing in long-term portfolio management for institutional investors. They offer a range of services, including OCIO and nondiscretionary consulting, catering to clients such as endowments, foundations, healthcare organizations, family offices, and financial institutions.
Introduction
Founded over 30 years ago, the firm’s mission is to empower clients to achieve their investment goals through superior investment performance, objective insights, and rigorous research. With over $70 billion of assets under advisement, the firm helps clients identify institutional-quality investment strategies across all asset classes— including private and public equity, global fixed income, real assets, diversified strategies, and hedge funds.
While the firm has dedicated teams specializing in each major asset class in institutional portfolios—with nuances in their investment approaches—their research teams pride themselves on speaking a common language when identifying managers. This cohesion is enabled by their robust investment research methodology, which helps them source high- quality investment strategies.
However, managing long-term, diverse portfolios requires not only specialized insights but also streamlined tools for research. As a firm who embraces new technologies, the firm understood that they needed to move away from a one-size- fits-all CRM. They began searching for a research management system that could help them
break down research silos, enable firm-wide collaboration, and create efficiencies to better serve their clients. To learn more about their journey in finding a solution to meet these goals, we spoke with the firm’s Director of Research, along with their Director of Private Equity.
The Challenge
In the mid-2000s, the firm implemented a system tailored for information collection. However, while this early system was good at collecting data, it was inadequate for data retrieval. Next, they migrated to a commonly-used CRM system, integrating their research team into a firm-wide CRM. The new CRM system required significant effort from the IT team to customize it to fit the needs of each team. The firm’s Director of Private Equity shared, “We built it, it worked, but it was clunky, it was miserable, everyone hated it.”
The cumbersome user interface led to low user satisfaction. Despite integrating approval processes and linking the system to their data warehouse, the user experience was far from ideal. Version updates from the system provider actually worsened rather than improved the interface, further complicating usage. As a result, users outside of research found it inefficient to use the research side of the CRM. According to the firm’s Director of Research, “If an advisor had a question about something, instead of going into the system and looking for it, they will just contact a research analyst and ask them to send it.”
The opportunity to find a purpose-built solution came when the firm decided to transition their technology stack from on-premises systems into a cloud-based environment. Rather than going through the hassle of converting a system that users didn’t like to a cloud-based environment, the firm began evaluating alternative options that would help them solve the user satisfaction challenges they had with the existing system.
The Solution
The firm began by assembling a diverse user group across the different sector teams to participate in the evaluation of a new research solution. “We looked at a lot of systems,” their Director of Research stated. “Some of them felt like a spreadsheet in a fancy wrapper; others were just more of the same CRM, basically doing the exact same thing.”
When the firm evaluated Bipsync, he remarked, “Bipsync felt different.”
The firm needed a solution that was easy-to-use, integrated well with their existing infrastructure, and could replace the capabilities of their current CRM while offering more efficiency. Bipsync was chosen due to its user-friendly interface, robust integration capabilities, and ability to meet the firm’s specific requirements. “It was pretty consistent across the board that everybody was impressed with the Bipsync system, and they could see and envision how it could work for us,” shared their Director of Research.
The Approach
Customized implementation for seamless transition
The implementation process involved close collaboration between the firm’s IT team and Bipsync’s implementation experts, who provided on-site support, establishing a strong working relationship and ensuring a smooth transition. The Bipsync platform was configured to fit the firm’s unique processes, including integrating with their existing data warehouse. This integration allowed for a bi-directional sync of data, ensuring that key data points from the data warehouse were readily available to analysts. Bipsync’s flexibility enabled the firm to customize dashboards, note types, and workflows to suit the specific needs of different teams, enhancing user adoption and data accuracy.
Implementing new systems and undertaking change management doesn’t go without its complexities. According to the firm’s Director of Research, “Because we already have an existing system, there are some peculiarities of things that we needed to migrate over... but ultimately, everybody was able to figure it out, solve the problems, and we were implemented on budget, and on time – which is miraculous.” The close collaboration between the firm’s IT team and Bipsync’s implementation experts laid the groundwork for success.
User-friendly interface boosts satisfaction
On user adoption, the firm’s Director of Private Equity shares, “The user experience in Bipsync has been much better. Our team members are constantly in Bipsync – which is what we want – because it’s seamless. The interface is easy to understand and follow.” Having research and information easily searchable in Bipsync allows the firm to create efficiencies across their investment processes. This includes better ways to track timelines and Investment Committee approvals, monitor the due diligence process over time from the initial meeting to follow ups, reference calls, legal doc review, and final reporting. They can leverage Bipsync to efficiently capture all the critical insights that informed their decision-making process and are ultimately able to make the great work that the team has produced easily accessible across the firm. The Director of Research adds, “Now our advisors look to our work in Bipsync before calling or emailing our analysts.”
Streamlined collaboration across teams
A major benefit of adopting Bipsync is the ability to enable teams across different sectors, strategies, and office locations to collaborate more effectively in real-time with its sharing model. The firm’s Director of Private Equity states, “I’ve got folks in three different offices, so historically we had to run a special report to review notes from meetings that people had during the prior week. Now we’ve got a central repository where we can quickly dive into meeting notes... so it’s made our weekly meetings more efficient.”
With the life of a private fund often spanning a decade, it’s crucial to track manager activities throughout this commitment period. The firm’s investment team regularly travels to meet with managers, and Bipsync has been invaluable for logging and sharing meeting notes while on the go. This capability keeps the wider team up-to- date on new developments, allowing them to track performance regularly and adjust strategies accordingly.
Insights gained across sectors are also shared more efficiently in Bipsync, which enhances collaboration between teams. By tagging and associating research, reference checks, and due diligence documentation, analysts in different sectors can easily access relevant information uncovered by other teams and apply it to their own strategies. “On the private side, our Director of Private Equity may not re-up,” explained the firm’s Director of Research, “and if ongoing reviews on the public side raise concerns, we can initiate a ‘divorce’ if needed.”
Another use case that the firm identified quickly after adopting Bipsync is that the platform helped them streamline their RFP processes. Because all research data is captured in Bipsync, the information is readily available for users outside of the research team to access and gather answers for the questionnaires. “What I’m seeing is a better use rate and better collection of institutional knowledge in a more efficiently accessed form,” says the firm’s Director of Research. “And across the firm... we don’t hear complaints.”
The Results
Today, Bipsync plays a crucial role in the firm’s manager evaluation process and continuous oversight. The firm leverages Bipsync to assist with both initial recommendations and ongoing monitoring, ensuring the firm can apply their high standards to their investment manager research. Bipsync has made research insights more accessible and actionable for all team members, streamlining the firm’s approach to manager selection and portfolio management.
Since implementation, the firm has seen significant improvements in user satisfaction due to the platform’s intuitive user interface. As result, they have benefited from more efficient data capture and retrieval, enhanced collaboration across multiple teams and locations, and improved their ability to document decision-making processes and report on performance results for their clients. On the partnership between Bipsync and the firm, The Director of Research shares, “The response that we get from your team is fast and always helpful – so it’s more than just the system, it’s been a good partnership, and we appreciate that.”