October 27, 2014 - Confluence, global leader in data-driven, scalable software and service solutions for the managed investment industry, today released the results of its 2014 Asset Management Industry Trends Survey. Nearly all survey respondents (94%) voiced concern that manual processes might affect their ability to control errors in the back-office, up from 85% in 2010.

According to the survey, two out of three respondents (61%) said their most important back-office goal over the next two years is to replace manual processes with automated technology. This was the third consecutive survey in which respondents selected adoption of greater automation in the back-office as their most frequently listed goal.

The second most common back-office goal in this year's survey is managing increased investor and regulatory reporting requirements.

• 48% of the survey respondents listed this as a top goal.
• Four out of five of those polled (83%) said they are concerned about manual processes affecting their ability to meet reporting deadlines, up from 72% in 2010.
• 19% indicated that reporting errors or inaccuracies are their top back-office concern, up from 7% in 2010.

“The asset management industry is facing increasingly complex operational and regulatory challenges that have begun to put strains on the back-office,” said Todd Moyer, Executive Vice President, Global Business Development at Confluence. “The data revealed in this survey supports what we’ve been seeing. There is a growing sense of urgency among back-office professionals to streamline operations and leverage automation to reduce the risk that manual processes pose to the asset manager."

Impeding the industry’s ability to adopt back-office automation to improve operations and reduce risk is a heavily fragmented back-office technology and fund data footprint.

• Four out of five respondents (78%) said they use multiple third-party solutions to support their back-office operations.
• Three-fourths (76%) of this group believe consolidation of third-party solutions would achieve higher operational efficiency through common user interface.
• 55% said it could lead to streamlined regulatory and investor reporting.

Of the survey respondents, nine out of 10 respondents (87%) expressed the importance of centralizing fund data into one common database; 38% said their firms have yet to centralize any data.

“Fragmented back-office technology and fund data is at the root of the industry's growing concern over regulatory reporting and manual process risk," said Moyer. “Asset managers need an industrial strength platform that enables technology and data consolidation while providing the ability to leverage automation to support their work process. It is our goal to help clients address these concerns by providing solutions that can aggregate back-office data and automate the operational process using a single platform.”