Waters Rankings 2010

Back in early 2007, when we were toying with the idea of introducing the Buy-Side Technology Awards, Matthew Crabbe, managing director of Incisive Media’s financial risk management and trading technology divisions, supported our aspirations, but at the same time offered some sobering advice: “Be prepared to lose some friends,” he warned.

I’m happy to report that I don’t think I’ve lost too many friends as a result of the BST Awards over the past three years, although I have had to endure a number of awkward conversations with entrants frustrated by their lack of success. You see, regardless of how watertight and transparent the process might be underpinning an awards program, anyone who has ever been involved in such an exercise would concede that no system is perfect. Every award not based on well-defined, empirical measures, ultimately relies on people’s subjectivity, and it is from this reliance that problems stem. We pursue perfection, but we are not there yet. 

Thankfully, the Waters Rankings do not rely on the subjectivity of a panel of judges, although they do rely on the subjectivity of its readers, who are invited to participate by casting votes in each of the 23 categories. The Rankings specifically do not require voters to explain their selections, nor are they designed to poll readers on specific products or services available to them and their organizations. Instead, we ask participants to vote for providers in a particular market segment, mostly because this is the most pragmatic way to decide the winners. Imagine, for example, if we included every risk-related offering on the market in the risk management category. We’d end up with more products than votes.

Thanks to all those organizations—readers and providers—for supporting this year’s Rankings. This has, over the years, become a significant event in the Waters calendar, and this year was no exception with marginally more votes cast than last year’s total of just over 1,000.

Click below to see the rankings in full:

Waters Rankings 2010 - Access to individual articles & videos

Waters Rankings 2010 - PDF