From dead data to living knowledge

Seqvoia, once known only as a regtech business, is becoming increasingly active within the field of data management. They advocate that organizations start having a real (product) data strategy in place before venturing into the full-fledged digitalization of their business.

As investment products become increasingly complex, more and more data points are needed to correctly manage them. While most organizations agree on the need for specialized applications and databases, few have implemented a holistic data management model that allows for a “de-siloing” of their organizational data. In practice, many departments still operate on a daily architecture made of spreadsheets, documents and emails, which ultimately results in a loss of shared organizational meaning and understanding — because knowledge is isolated within different departments and functions.

“What if financial companies embarked on a journey towards a holistic product lifecycle approach? I believe this would allow them to take full advantage of the information stuck in best-of-breed software solutions, spreadsheets and in the minds of employees, i.e. explicit as well as tacit knowledge,” argues Nicolas Buck, CEO of Seqvoia.

I believe that the virtual nature of the products has rendered the need for PLM in the financial industry less obvious. This may indeed mislead manufacturers, making them think that waste in the production process is negligible. But waste is very much a reality in the financial industry. It is the sum of all the countless hours of trying to understand what the data means, who changed it and why, correcting errors, repeatedly inputting the same information in different systems and managing personal information silos because users do not trust the golden source of information.

There are multiple challenges to apply a PLM approach in finance. Nevertheless, I believe that it is the most important, radically different idea that financial organizations should embrace. I acknowledge that a successful implementation of PLM in finance is not for the faint hearted. Building internal consensus on where PLM should start, and end will be a long and intense discussion. Sponsors of the idea will have to build common ground among all stakeholders,” stipulates M. Buck.

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