Sell-Side Technology Awards 2024: Best implementation at a sell-side firm—FlexTrade Systems

Overview

JonesTrading, the Santa Monica, California-based brokerage, regularly reviews its technology and vendor relationships to ensure that its trading and services offerings are suitable to handle both existing and future business requirements. As a part of these reviews, JonesTrading identified the need to replace its incumbent order management system (OMS). The new OMS would be used to handle multiple business lines, including equities, electronic trading, options, program trading, and the firm’s outsourced trading offering.

Selection  

FlexTrade was selected by JonesTrading due to the complexity of the workflows across its various desks, including its high-touch cash equities business, outsourced trading, options, and low-touch electronic and program trading. This was a critical implementation that impacted large numbers of traders and non-trading staff across more than a dozen locations.

Implementation  

The implementation kicked off immediately with aggressive timelines. In record time, FlexOMS was live and in production with the implementation encompassing all of JonesTrading’s lines of business in the US. Using FlexOMS’s open architecture and API-enabled technology, the platform was able to connect all of JonesTrading’s downstream systems, including its middle-office platform and its reporting, accounting, compliance, best execution, and finance systems.

Results

FlexOMS now supports five separate business lines within JonesTrading, and was “Flex” tested, user-acceptance tested, and live within the agreed project deadline.

Relationship

FlexTrade’s product roadmap is driven in consultation with its various clients. FlexOMS has ongoing collaborations with expanding business lines within JonesTrading.

Why they won

OMSs represent the beating heart of virtually all capital markets firms’ trading front-ends as they execute, manage and track orders, typically from execution all the way to clearing and settlement. Ask any capital markets CTO and they will tell you that replacing an OMS is invariably a complex and unenviable task, no matter how straightforward the project might initially appear. The fact that FlexTrade was able to implement its FlexOMS offering in the timeframes agreed at the start of the project speaks volumes about the firm as a technology partner and the technical capabilities of the JonesTrading tech team led by Jack Garceau. If ever there was a model implementation, this is it.