Buy-Side Technology Awards 2014: Best Buy-Side Client Reporting Platform—Vermilion Software

London-based Vermilion Software’s Vermilion Reporting Suite (VRS) is no stranger to the client reporting winners’ circle: It won this award back in 2009 and again a year later, after which it was dominated by Equipos Coric, now part of SimCorp, for three consecutive years. 

An argument can be made for a client-reporting solution only being as good as the team that implements it, which is why it is not surprising to see Vermilion picking up two additional awards this year—best implementation at buy-side firm and best product for 2014—in addition to its win in the client reporting category. The firm’s flagship VRS platform was launched in 2005, and has since then helped many buy-side firms move beyond legacy systems and manual processes by automating reporting tasks, from data gathering to filing reports. It includes workflow, data gateway, commentary, report-generation, distribution, and account management services. Thanks to its single data gateway, VRS is able to address all data-mapping requirements, including interfaces to all major data systems and internal data. It can be tailored to suit different types of data-integration challenges to answer users’ target operating models.

The revamp of the VRS in 2012—which entailed significant performance enhancements, including a dramatic reduction in report-generation times and an increase in volume handling and scalability—as well as a number of significant client wins, including Schroders, Carmignac Gestion and Ashmore Group (see page 94), all based in London, were instrumental in helping Vermilion back into the winners’ circle. Client confidence is key in this business and buy-side firms need to consider how their reporting platform helps strengthen their client relationships, while also helping them to streamline what can be an onerous, error-prone and labor-intensive function without the right technology in place to automate it. Implementing a client-reporting platform is no small endeavor, and selecting the right vendor is crucial to managing data sourcing, rendering, commentary management, and distribution. Clearly, Vermilion has all of these bases covered. 

An argument can be made for a client-reporting solution only being as good as the team that implements it, which is why it is not surprising to see Vermilion picking up two additional awards this year—best implementation at buy-side firm and best product for 2014—in addition to its win in the client reporting category.