Finance Practice: Automated Reporting

Unlike manufacturers, financial services companies hold no patents to protect their products. With products vulnerable to commoditization, competitive advantage goes to the firm that can deliver critical information fast in the form required by the customer.

Much of what is published—fact sheets, shareholder reports, statutory filings and prospectuses—is based on the same raw information. However, customers and institutions require this raw information to be available through various channels: print, Web, intranet, wireless, virtually simultaneously.

These documents vary little from quarter to quarter, excepting minor changes to reflect performance results. Mutual fund performance reports combine reusable elements, such as fund titles and company logos, with variable elements such as portfolio composition. But many financial services firms are stuck with an outmoded print process which reinvents the wheel for each 'new' report.

DeepBridge Media-Independent Automated Publishing solutions automate the publishing process, based on a templated approach and defined business rules. Through standardization and automation of authoring, publishing and distribution of content, time and labor costs are significantly reduced. Links to business systems ensure strict compliance to regulatory controls. And approved reports are published directly to print, Web and wireless.

Fund report customization becomes a simple process and provides service level differentiation:

• personalized reports for an individual or institution
• syndicated reports for distribution through an institutional client's intranet
• executive information systems briefings for top-level executives
• themed funds

DeepBridge understands the rules that drive financial services reporting and publishing. Our expertise with leading content management systems, database design and workflow models ensures that solutions integrate with legacy systems and platforms.