Standardized solutions: What are the benefits?

Henrik Schlægel
Executive Vice President, SimCorp Professional Services

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Read the article and learn about:

• Standardized solutions
• Technology and service enablement across the entire investment management lifecycle
• Short-term and long-term benefits

To help buy-side firms adapt to a constantly evolving business environment where new challenges arise with short notice, we’ve developed SimCorp Standard Platforms™. These standardized and easily implemented solutions offer technology and service enablement across firms’ covering the full investment value chain. The objective is to optimize our clients’ operations and maximize their return on investment during the entire lifecycle of their solution.¹

The benefits of standardized solutions are short-term as well as long-term. In the short term, standardized solutions enable us to significantly speed up the client’s time to benefit by efficiently identifying all potential benefits and addressing all potential concerns related to the solution delivery. Standardized components, processes, and methodologies ensure that firms get up and running on the solution faster and significantly reduce key uncertainties related to the cost, time, risk, and scoping of the solution.

In the long term, we ensure post-implementation business value by preventing the hassle and inefficiencies of legacy configuration, enabling fast onboarding of new investment mandates and helping investment firms to absorb changes with a predictable cost of ownership.

SimCorp Standard Platforms – a new paradigm

SimCorp Standard Platforms offer our software solution, SimCorp Dimension®, in combination with standard workflows, standard components, standard technical design, and standard documentation, while still offering custom solutions where required. The building blocks can be divided into three key elements:

1. A target operating model, based on predefined standard business workflows as a recommended baseline for the system deployment, providing high business value in our clients’ daily operations from start to end.
2. SimCorp Standard Platforms based on global best practices delivered centrally and ensuring a fast delivery so that clients can trial it already on a short timeframe.
3. Finally, there will still be an opportunity for clients to add customization on top for specific areas where it creates high business value.

High-level benefits of standard platforms

Solutions based on SimCorp Standard Platforms allow investment management firms to focus on optimizing their operating model in order to support their long-term value drivers. This is made possible through prioritization and getting the best of two worlds; customizing where it creates high business value and using standards where there is little value from being unique.

The standard platform solutions, which are based on SimCorp Dimension, are built in our offshore Configuration Delivery Center and delivered on site by SimCorp Professional Services in order to optimize the delivered value.

The realized benefits of standard platforms can be divided in three categories: 

1. Pre-contract and planning benefits

• Shaping of business operating model enables realization of long-term value drivers
• Scope certainty reduces project risk
• Optimized scope and delivery plan   

2. Implementation benefits 

• Accelerated delivery of benefits realization and reduced costs 
• Clearly defined agile delivery drops and staff responsibilities ensure and drive high quality and reduced uncertainty 
• Early involvement of end-users for risks mitigation and easier solution adoption 

3. Monitoring and optimization benefits 

• Shortened time to introduce new capabilities to the organization
• Smoother release upgrade 
• Prevention of legacy configuration across the application life cycle  
• Easier adoption of regulatory and market changes

Becoming more agile and maximizing the return on investment – faster

In a fast-changing environment where business and regulatory requirements continue to become more complex, investment managers are looking for optimization and standardization of their core business processes. Standardized solutions like SimCorp Standard Platforms enable firms to increase speed on their solutions faster, with less risk and cost. The mix of standardized building blocks and customization options also allows them to run their business on an optimal blend of standard platforms and custom solutions that supports their long-term value drivers and maximizes their return on investment.

1. Learn more about SimCorp Standard Platforms: https://www.simcorp.com/en/services/simcorp-standard-platforms