In a rapidly evolving industry, staying ahead of trends isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity. In our new blog series, our experts will share practical insights and strategies to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities shaping your business today. In this edition, we speak to Vivian Zou, Senior Sales Director at SS&C GlobeOp, to get her view on an increasingly attractive APAC investment landscape.
Based in Hong Kong, Vivian joined SS&C in 2023. With over a decade of experience in fund administration, Vivian is now responsible for growing SS&C’s presence across the APAC region, focusing on private markets, asset managers, allocators and institutional investors.
What were the biggest challenges in 2024?
One of the key developments in private markets and among asset managers is the rate of consolidation taking place in that sector. It’s a symptom of a maturing market, which of course brings its own challenges; but our offering is designed to support companies scaling up, and there is a lot of that taking place across the market. So we’re well-placed to support this trend.
At SS&C, we have our day-to-day challenges; but one we focused on in 2024 was making sure that the services we provide are tailored to suit the nuances of individual markets across APAC. Globally, we have a huge platform with an array of products, solutions and tools that a business can adopt, so we’ve been working hard to make sure these are a perfect fit for our clients—whether they are in Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Australia or anywhere in APAC.
We prefer to build real partnerships and embed ourselves within our clients’ operations; so naturally, their problems are ours. And that’s why we exist—to solve those problems.
What were the top three opportunities in 2024?
Asset managers are a key segment we are keen to support—particularly those who are looking to scale up and know they need to modernize their operations but aren’t sure how to go about it. We’ve shown thousands of asset managers how to do it and provided them with modern operations that can deliver on their business ambitions.
Private credit managers are another specialized segment where we think we can add real value. There are so many layers of complexity in what they do and there is strong demand for them to deliver data connectivity from the asset level up to the holding company and funds. They need a partner that knows how to facilitate that data flow and we have the tools and services to do that. So we see that as a big opportunity.
And finally, we’re looking closely at the asset allocator side. When operating in various classes of investment, it’s really important (and also really difficult) to get one picture of the performance of such a range of asset classes at any one time. It requires quality, bespoke solutions and that is what we’re good at delivering.
We know we have great technology, we know we have the products that clients need and we know our consultative approach delivers the right results. We’ve been doing it for nearly 40 years now and we want to show what we can do for more clients across more territories in APAC.
How are you helping clients make the most of their investments? What’s the key difference you make to their business performance?
There is a growing understanding that while technology might be the right solution to many of the challenges facing financial markets, it’s only as good as the data it is built or feeds upon.
That’s why a lot of our engagement with clients is focused on consultation—what we call SS&C Concierge. We have great technology, but we don’t believe technology is the answer to every business problem. We always start by taking a deep dive into our clients’ systems and then laying out a tailored roadmap of development—a combination of data, technology, process and expertise will deliver real change in a business. It can be hard to get some people engaged early on in the process but once they see the automation and the efficiencies come through, they get on board.
Our clients and prospects have a lot of the data they need to start modernizing, but it only gives them one perspective. We come with our own proprietary and market data and we combine that with the client’s data, in whatever form we find it, clean it and feed it back into the organization. The scale of the data we have and how we apply it is different, and it’s always the data that makes the difference with any piece of technology.
In your opinion, where do the greatest opportunities for fund managers lie in APAC and how will you be supporting them?
The APAC market is maturing rapidly, but there are still lots of opportunities out there. I think one of the emerging trends is for managers to find a distinct strategy or racetrack and go deep into it. We are seeing more and more of that and seeing a lot more fund managers succeeding with this strategy. Fewer generalists and a greater variety of specialists seem to be the way forward.
We’re often compared to the US or European markets, but they are much more homogenous than APAC. There are so many individual markets within this region and they all have their nuances and ways of operating based on culture and geography. That makes for a really interesting place to work and one where there is always opportunity in the variety.
That’s why we have such a large and international team in place. The technology we use is pretty universal worldwide; so our people, their language skills and their knowledge of local markets and cultures act as the crucial link between the technology and all the markets that make up the APAC region.
Our global scale and local knowledge are what make the difference.
Read our blogs about winding down a fund or APAC strategies for emerging fund managers and stay tuned for more interviews with SS&C experts.
