- Categories:
Expand worked with a seasoned CTO who had recently moved into a capital markets CIO role at a firm where securities had historically only been traded in support of the Corporate and Transaction businesses. This legacy meant that asset classes were extremely siloed, and that there was a lack of consistency in tracking costs.
Problems/Questions
The CIO approached Expand to better understand the internal costs affecting the business and how those costs compared to peers, in order to devise a road map to become a major market player within a number of core asset classes.
How Expand helped
The idea was to increase competitive strength in the selected asset classes by reducing costs from pure support products and refocusing investment on revenue generating products.
Expand engaged the client in a three year benchmarking exercise, targeting the firm’s immature and inconsistent cost allocation model. Based on the analysis Expand devised industry standard run/change budget measures along with consistent resourcing metrics that were valuable to the business.
Using these industry standards Expand was then able to provide targeted analysis for the client, by accurately comparing the client based on target ratios from competing firms in the asset classes they were aiming to compete in.
Outcome
Having freed up run-the-bank budget the client now has an investment plan targeted at core products. The plan was devised by identifying areas of duplication and by leveraging certain front office functions through the sharing of applications and infrastructure.