In this age of renewed focus on cost savings, I have noticed quite a few firms are increasingly using third party data provider data for their own products on their own websites as a way of reducing their internal data management costs. At face value, it seems like a reasonable way to drive down cost for what can be a very serious cost driver in any asset management firm.
However, you can think about it in another way. What message does this give to the market, to the potential investor? Does it say that you are incapable of managing your own data, or even that a third-party data provider has a better grip on your data that you do? What does this say about your firm?
If the data provider errs and promotes inaccurate information about your product on your website, sure they may take a hit – maybe a month’s fee in SLA credits, but who takes the true financial burden, who takes the reputational hit, who deals with the regulators who arrive on site for a multi-week due diligence audit?
Also – people may make investment decisions based on incorrect or out of date information – customers could choose to withdraw their investment, and new prospects may decide to invest elsewhere. If it turns out, that your funds were mis-represented in public, you will suffer damage to your reputation and to your brand and you might even have to take corrective action if any investor loses money due to errors in the information that was provided.
It all comes back to caveat emptor – buyer beware – you get what you pay for.
Filed under: Data Governance, Data management, Outsource, service provider Tagged: accuracy, asset management, data management, Data Quality, ownership, regulator
