Past Articles - SME Forum

Article Library

The SME Forum gives you access to proprietary thought leadership, original articles and research and that which has been developed especially for the community by our vendor partners or other members. This archive contains past articles that have been featured on the website.

In some cases, full articles like those below or other research are available exclusively to members in the Members Site (username and password required). Please Contact Us at smeforum@thesmeforum.net or call us at 1+917-561-9553 to request access and your credentials.

State of the 2024 Asset Management Industry – Ultimus 2024 Client Summit Review

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development (12/2024)

The Ultimus Client Summit 2024 agenda addressed major industry issues and challenges by inviting industry experts to share insights and perspectives plus discuss solutions and best practices. Key topics included distribution strategies, regulatory and compliance matters, middle office solutions, optimizing operations, fund governance, registered alternatives structures, ETFs, and cybersecurity. They also engineered several excursions and opportunities to network with other fund advisor peers, industry experts, and Ultimus professionals…(read more)

The ROI of AI in Financial Services: Navigating Value Creation

By: Nathan Stevenson, CEO, ForwardLane. With Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development. (12/2024)

In this article, Institute Founding member Nathan Stevenson, CEO of ForwardLane – a financial technology firm founded specifically to help financial institutions leverage the power of AI – takes us on a far-ranging journey across the financial services industry to explore how financial firms are grappling with the issue of value creation and measuring ROI on strategic AI deployment.…..(read more)

Future of AI in Financial Services 2030 – A Thought Experiment

By: Nathan Stevenson, CEO, ForwardLane. With Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development. (11/2024)

In this thought experiment by Institute Founding member Nathan Stevenson, CEO of ForwardLane – a financial technology firm founded specifically to help financial institutions leverage the power of AI – we will explore potential scenarios for 2030 and examine how these developments might reshape the industry, impact society, and challenge our very conception of financial services…..(read more)

Delivering Business Intelligence in the Asset Management Industry

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development (07/2024)

The Spring 2024 SME Forum highlighted the transformative potential of data and AI and how asset management firms are still in the early stages of exploring widespread AI usage while prioritizing information security and addressing compliance concerns. The discussions highlighted the need for strategic AI implementation to maximize benefits and minimize risks….(read more)

Harnessing AI in asset and investment management: AI for Enterprise

By: Bluprintx (06/2024)

Asset Management firms are primed for AI optimization. Holding a wealth of data, ambitious enterprises will see enormous productivity benefits through automated analytics, process automation and platform integrations that make it easier to handle vast asset libraries. Scaling operations will not require greater resources, but smarter application of those resources.

The roadblock in this narrative is, of course, compliance. Risks and regulations point to cautious handling of breakthrough technologies. However, asset management stakeholders must not keep their heads in the sand. The first movers’ advantage around AI is a serious proposition, and one which asset management firms can preserve by taking a proactive approach to AI readiness…..(read more)

Unlocking the Untapped Potential of Data and AI in Asset Management

By: HSO (05/2024)

Asset and investment management firms are awash in data, which is constantly being generated from a combination of internal sources, free sources, and paid sources. By not taking full advantage of the data they already have at their disposal, asset management firms are missing the stories within the data. As a result, the firm fails to develop a coherent strategy to extract the critical information held within the data and leverage that information for greater customer engagement, more strategic decision-making, and better data governance and compliance. In this paper, HSO discusses how an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) can transform the data you already have into information that will help you meet your organization’s goals, such as increasing sales, increasing or retaining your assets under management, fewer liquidations, and lowering costs….(read more)

Designing a Generative AI Assistant for Private Markets

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development. With Samuel Ganeles, Director of Enterprise Sales at Helix (05/2024)

Private Markets as alternative investments may offer a significant opportunity for growth and diversification for eligible investors yet investing in this space has long been dominated by institutional players, not retail investors and their Advisors. Traditionally, access and adoption of this market segment has been shrouded in complexity with barriers such as compliance hurdles and cumbersome research and due diligence processes acting as deterrents for financial wealth advisors. Retail investors are underrepresented in this category but Advisors adopting and offering these investments have the potential to create significant value for their clients.

To realize this opportunity, Helix by HL – a new AI-powered Private Markets investing platform – was designed to help revolutionize Private Markets investing for retail clients by offering Advisors unprecedented access and insight into this space …(read more)

Building Transparency and Trust in AI Fintech

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development. With Nathan Stevenson, CEO, ForwardLane (03/2024)

The first article in the new “AI FinTech in Wealth and Asset Management” series, by the Institute for Innovation Development explores the deep-seated issues around transparency and trust in AI FinTech and the dynamics at play to address them in an interview with Nathan Stevenson, CEO of ForwardLane – a leading AI WealthTech startup that has made transparency and trust core to its values and ethos and has earned recognition as a Certified Transparent™ organization. Nathan will be sharing his in-depth knowledge and experiences on his continuing journey of applying AI in financial services for sustained growth and ROI …(read more)

Using AI to Weave the Fabric of Data and Intelligence for Fund Product Distribution

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development. With Sal Gagliano, CEO, and Nikhil Nawathe, CPO, of TIFIN AMP. (03/2024)

To better understand how AI is addressing long-standing Asset Management Distribution challenges, Bill Hortz of the Institute for Innovation Development reached out to Sal Gagliano, CEO, and Nikhil Nawathe, CPO, of TIFIN AMP – an Asset Manager AI platform which combines data science, AI/ML and visualization capabilities to drive more intelligent distribution. In this interview, they explain how they are applying AI technology to potentially change seemingly entrenched patterns of thought, behavior, and strategy for this area of the financial services industry. …(read more)

Managers Hit Roadblocks Expanding Data Analytics to Institutional Distribution

By: Tony Rifilato , FundFire (12/2023)

Managers are looking at the retail space on how to best incorporate data to drive distribution and marketing efforts.

Asset managers are leaning more heavily on data and technology to bolster sales and marketing. But firms are at the mercy of limited data sets in the institutional channel, and some managers have not developed a cohesive plan to incorporate data, panelists said at the Sales and Marketing Enablement Forum last month …(read more)

More Institutional Asset Managers Turning to Data-driven Sales and Marketing Strategies, Survey Finds

By: Cheyenne Ligon, Pensions & Investments (11/2023)

Institutional asset managers are increasingly relying on data to make decisions about the way they sell and market their investment strategies, according to the results of a survey out December 1, 2023 …(read more)

The State of Marketing Analytics in Asset Management, MarketBridge Benchmark Report

By: Bill Sheldon, Marketbridge (05/2023)

In an earlier survey conducted by MarketBridge, 71% of asset management firms indicated they were increasing their investments into data, analytics and measurement, but for many gaps still exist, and ROI is often uncertain or elusive. Marketing Analytics should be the most straight-forward use of applied data science at a company—and yet it continues to struggle in this industry. Why? And what can be done about it? …(read more)

2022 In Review and The Road Ahead

By: Hazem Gamal, The SME Forum (01/2023)

We look forward to 2023 and reflect on all that we accomplished together in 2022.
Persistently high inflation, continuing supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine and other external factors created pressures on the financial markets and our industry. Despite growing headwinds, 2022 was a year full of successes for the SME Forum…(read more)

Unique Asset Management Forum on Industry Challenges and Opportunities

By: Bill Hortz, Founder and Dean, Institute for Innovation Development (12/2022)

Writing about the 2022 Fall Forum in Atlanta, Bill Hortz states that the SME Forum is “taking its place among other top asset management conferences like the Investment Company Institute, the Money Management Institute, NICSA, and the MFEA, but with an intensely practical execution focus on marketing, sales/distribution, operations, and technology.”…(read more)

A Roadmap for Modern Marketing Analytics: MarketBridge Executive Whitepaper

By: Bill Sheldon, MarketBridge (12/2022)

How to Make Marketing Science a Reality—and Deliver the Analytic Results that Executives Want. Read a summary and download this whitepaper which is a detailed, concrete resource for Marketers and Marketing Analytics professionals looking to take their organizations to the next level of data-driven decision-making…(read more)

Asset Managers Look to CDPs, Survey Finds

By: Marianne Hewitt, The Growth Strategy Group and The SME Forum (11/2022)

In recent years, asset managers have made operational efficiencies their highest priority. More recently, this sector has identified customer experience (CX) as a close second priority. The CDP Institute, The SME Forum and Marianne Hewitt of The Growth Strategy Group collaborated on the first industry study of asset managers of all sizes to determine their level of understanding of customer data platforms (CDPs) and their plans, if any, to implement CDPs……(read more)

How Financial Advisor Needs Are Changing Amid Economic Uncertainty

By: Bill Sheldon, MarketBridge (10/2022)

Insights and Actions for Asset Management Sales & Marketing Leaders: Transition to Next-Generation Distribution – A persistent pandemic, renewed inflation, rising interest rates, and recession fears continue to challenge the wealth management industry. Faced with technology innovation, fintech disruptors, and fast-changing investor behavior, the aging advisor population struggles with omnichannel engagement, attrition, and attracting new talent…(read more)

Democratization of Technology: Addressing Potential Pitfalls

By: Tom Berger, HSO (7/2022)

Over the past few years, we have seen the infrastructure, technology, tools, applications, and capabilities in the world become logarithmically more accessible to internal clients. In addition, employees are becoming more interested in getting their hands dirty and building their own user experience to assist with their daily, monthly, and annual workflows and objectives. This concept of the democratization of technology is ever expanding and giving businesses the opportunity to reap the benefits of talent they already have in house that wasn’t being utilized before…(read more)

Innovation in Investment Management: The current technological landscape, how to transform and unlock the opportunity

By: Richard Rouse, The Investment Association and Engine, Expand Research and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) (06/2022)

The last couple of years have seen the global economy focus on tech and digitisation in order to meet shifting client requirements and business needs. We are proud the UK remains one of the largest and most diverse centres of investment management in the world, second only to the US with total UK assets under management (AUM) reaching £9.4 trillion by the end of 2020, an impressive increase of 11% year-on-year…(read more)

2022 Spring Forum, Latent Leverage Getting More with What You Have Highlights Video

By: The SME Forum (05/2022)

Few experiences show the power and depth of the SME Forum community as attending one of our signature Forum in-person events. Check out highlights from the 2022 Spring Forum…(watch video)

How Asset Managers Use CDPs To Create The MarTech Stack Of The Future:

By: Marianne Hewitt, The Growth Strategy Group (03/2022)

Asset managers must continue to drive down expense ratios and keep an intense focus on growth by leveraging modern technologies and improving operational efficiencies. For asset managers to deploy that technology, they need to invest in the marketing technology (Martech) stack of the future…(read more)

Post-Covid Collaboration Boosting Analytics Efforts

By: Loren Fox, Ignites Research (12/2021)

Data and analytics are shaping sales efforts more than ever in the wake of the pandemic’s lockdowns. The unlikely cause: a rise in digital collaboration since early 2020 that led sales and marketing teams to engage more deeply with the data about advisors that asset managers have been amassing and analyzing for years…(read more)

Exactly What We Gain by Going Back Out On The Road

By: Andy Serwer: Yahoo! Finance (10/2021)

I’m on the road again, though with all due respect to Willie Nelson, I’m not sure I just can’t wait to get on it. ‌This is about business travel of course and more specifically going to conferences, conventions, and the like. So yes, I’ve been getting back to that old familiar routine of airports, airplanes, hotel rooms, endless days, and very little sleep…(read more)

Asset Management Outlook: Next-Generation Distribution Enablement

By: Bill Sheldon, MarketBridge and The SME Forum (08/2021)

Insights and Critical Actions for Asset Management: Economic Disruption and Its Impact on Distribution: For years asset managers have discussed the need to transition to a “next-generation” distribution model to offset industry-wide margin declines. Many have been slow to adopt more advanced data, analytics, and technology capabilities, but the pandemic was a forcing event as relationships went virtual. The question has now become…(read more)

Democratization of Technology and the Changing Role of IT

By: Tom Berger, HSO and Natixis (8/2021)

In the last 20 years, the role of IT has changed to meet end user demand for self-service technology. No longer is IT the holder of all the keys to technology—managing everything hardware to passwords; IT is now facilitating and managing the shift to end users having more control over how they access, control, and leverage data…(read more)

The New Urgency for Data Driven Sales

By: Ignites Research and The SME Forum (06/2021)

Retail and institutional sales teams should join forces to use data to better drive sales, a new report from Ignites Research in partnership with The SME Forum suggests. Though fund shops’ data analytics capabilities have gotten stronger in recent years, gaps remain between the retail and institutional sides of distribution, according to a new report from Ignites Research. The paper, “The New Urgency for Data-Driven Sales,” is based on surveys of heads of data analytics and business intelligence at 26 firms conducted with SME Forum…(read more)

Lessons from Lockdowns: Benchmark Survey Autumn 2021