As investment management firms explore ways to lower costs and improve their operational efficiency, they continue to focus on opportunities to streamline the whole front-to-back office process.  This presents a tremendous opportunity to transform the business so it is positioned to grow and have the agility to meet opportunities for years to come. While few disagree that an end state of having everything on one technology platform would achieve this outcome, the challenge is getting there. 

Between falling fixed-income interest rates and the quest for superior returns via alternative investments, insurers are constantly reevaluating their investment strategies. After the operational dislocation arising from COVID-19, they should also be looking at investment operations to make sure they have the resiliency to support their strategies in a more dynamic market. From talking with insurance industry clients and analysts, we’ve identified five fundamental trends that insurers need to be mindful of as they weigh their operational decisions.

A crisis might not seem like the time to evaluate your operations, but now is perhaps when opportunities to improve are most visible. Some of these potential areas in need of improvement are reporting, risk assessment, remote access, ability to scale up or down quickly, domain expertise and immediate access to information.