Dear CEO, Founder and CFO:
The word “outsourcing” is a loaded one. Your company is doing well and the most natural choice would seem to be to hire the technology, investor services and clerical staff that you need. As they learn about your business they will become more valuable to you, right?
Yes, that is exactly right. As your business starts to grow quickly they are so valuable that you need them focused on your primary mission of managing the investment portfolio accounting and supporting the sales effort.
Your company is not going to distinguish itself from competitors by spending money year-after-year on a home-grown investor services system. A secure, web-based portal to display information to both investors and their financial advisors, allowing them to update information will be the eventual goal. It will be expensive! The system will also need to allocated financial attributes to investors and track their capital account. You’ll need to upload ACH files to the bank and print/mail checks for each distribution. You can’t afford to have experts on your investment business performing duties that are common to any fund. It has already been built and is available!
Outsourcing decisions are difficult to make. The CEO, Founder or CFO frequently needs to be the one to lead a review. It is not hard to imagine a scenario where a people in the IT or Investor Service group think that bringing in a technology and clerical services vendor is the worst idea they have ever heard.
With some leadership of the process and assurance that the company’s future is bright, these people may come to see that delegating tasks to an experience provider reduces risk to both themselves and the company, opening up their career to new and interesting possibilities.
Schedule a call with Great Lakes Fund Solutions to discuss your business needs, see a demonstration of our system and tease out a prospective service scope. Win-win situations are more common than you might think if an outsourcing review is carefully considered and lead from the top.
Kind regards,
Mark Lancaster
President