Enterprise Data Management special report

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EDM Comes of Age

This issue's hefty Virtual Roundtable features robust discussion by representatives of investment management firms and service providers both large and small. Participants confronted the influence of the "big data" buzzword in the EDM space, and present a picture of when and why firms choose to use EDM rather than more mature data management strategies.

EDM projects are becoming enterprise-wide, says Tony Brownlee of Kingland Systems. "The support for EDM in the past three to four years has shifted from divisional or department and become much more top-of-the-house focused." David Thomas of Barclays Capital echoes this, identifying implementation efforts and their relative speed as dependent on the maturity of data management teams. Those whose strategy depends on significant system improvement will need more time, and are clearly creating stronger services, standards and controls, he says.

"The foundation of any data management strategy and its implementation continues to be a strong governance and operating model," he says. "This enables easier stakeholder communication and buy-in and is critical to funding and implementation decisions." Barclays has invested a great deal over the past two years in data management platforms, and has seen first-hand the results of doing so: faster implementation of system changes and quicker responses to stakeholder needs and changing environments, according to Thomas.

However, challenges remain, and the panellists discuss ways to achieve an accurate data management plan that is fast enough, and definitely faster than those "mature" data management strategies. One thing they agree on: Everyone will have to do more with less.

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