Optimized profitability with Avaloq MIS add-on module

Kachel Referenz International Wealth Management Provider

The international wealth management provider is a globally active full-service investment firm with ocations based in various countries worldwide. It focuses on wealth management solutions for growth companies. Their investment professionals manage and administer over USD 22 billion of assets on behalf of over 12,000 clients.

The Avaloq group is an internationally leading fintech company. With headquarters in Switzerland, the company employs more than 2,200 highly qualified banking and IT specialists and has a global customer base of more than 150 financial institutions.

With the implementation of the Avaloq Banking Suite for the UK onshore and offshore departments and its launch in April 2015, the wealth management provider uses the MIS add-on module to perform their periodical sales controlling more efficiently and transparently — and, thus, send the relevant KPIs periodically to their overseas headquarters.

1. Systematic: the implementation

The Avaloq Banking Suite provides an integrated MIS add-on module with extensive controlling functionalities, which is based on the zeb.control information system that allows the wealth management provider to lay the technical foundation for effective and efficient management decisions. In detail, the main advantages of the MIS are:

  • proven standard reportings that contain sales controlling key figures, trend identifications, the possibility of drill-down functions and customized reports
  • flexible and fast ad-hoc analyses with a pivot functionality from a strategic management-based view of profitability down to the profitability of a single customer or account
  • full integration into the Avaloq Banking Suite

On top of these, the basic package of the Avaloq MIS add-on module allows for further individual enhancements. A few months before the launch of the Avaloq Banking Suite, the project started with a kick-off workshop that defined the required MIS scope. The scope was aligned to the basic MIS offering, while additional requirements were phased separately. Subsequently, a project plan was set up with the fully defined scope and divided into two phases. The first phase included the implementation of basic functionalities and small parts of the additional requirements (i.e. those that were necessary for the first phase implementation). In the second phase, all remaining requirements were implemented.

The first project phase started with the analysis and design phase. Under the main responsibility of the wealth management provider and with the support of Avaloq, the provider defined the required business definitions, e.g. for net new money and MIS structures. With the implementation of the Avaloq MIS add-on module into the Avaloq Banking Suite, its quality gates (as laid down in the parameterization guidelines) were fulfilled and so the actual MIS implementation could start. Subsequently, under the main responsibility of zeb, the first MIS implementation phase began with customizing the data transformations and setting up reporting hierarchies (e.g. cost centers, service types). After the implementation, the project passed into a phase of testing and bug fixing. In parallel, the provider and Avaloq defined the requirements for phase two. Due to this approach, there was no need to interrupt the MIS implementation at any time. In phase two of the MIS implementation, zeb finalized the additional requirements regarding calculation and reporting. In addition, a quality assurance phase with extensive testing started again. Afterwards the MIS was ready for launch. In parallel, the users were trained to build additional management reports by themselves. Based on a clearly defined scope and implementation approach, the project took only six months from its kickoff to the launch of the Avaloq MIS add-on module.

2. Effective: the results

After an exceptionally short implementation period, the Avaloq MIS add-on module offers a proven sales controlling view. In addition, the wealth management provider benefits from well-structured and reproducible KPIs. This crucial financial management information is now flexibly available on all reporting levels, while the integration of the MIS add-on module into the Avaloq Banking Suite ensures a safe data interface as well as consistent data. At the same time, the profit and cost center management aligns with the relevant business models and with help of sales controlling full transparency is given.

Overview of common project phases

3. Future-proof: outlook and conclusion

In addition to these basic functionalities, the wealth management provider will make use of individual enhancements. As an example, further reporting content in addition to the standard dimensions and key figures is required. Thus, zeb is currently extending the standard data set and reporting content according to the individual parameterization in the Avaloq Core Platform. In addition, the users took part in a special training period to develop further standard reports on their own. From now on, they can adapt the reporting independently and quickly without the help of zeb.