{"id":404,"date":"2016-02-17T18:22:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T18:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iccinc.com\/site\/?p=404"},"modified":"2017-07-06T15:56:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T15:56:47","slug":"your-investment-software-is-not-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iccinc.com\/site\/2016\/02\/17\/your-investment-software-is-not-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Investment Software is not Word\u00ae"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text: Title and Intro” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” text_font_size=”17″ text_line_height=”2.1em” custom_padding=”||1.5em|”]<\/p>\n

Your Investment Software is not Word\u00ae<\/h1>\n

Business users often act as if upgrading their investment system is like getting a new version of Microsoft Word. It\u2019s not. Word doesn\u2019t require a project plan.<\/p>\n

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It doesn\u2019t require thorough regression or unit acceptance testing. It doesn\u2019t require \u2014 or need to produce \u2014 reports. It doesn\u2019t need to have the hundreds or thousands of features and functions on which the business depends every day. And it doesn\u2019t put portfolios worth billions of dollars at risk. An investment accounting system probably needs to be upgraded annually, for regulatory or other business reasons; and it needs to work, usually in a short timeframe, without breaking anything else.<\/p>\n

Most companies have limited numbers of IT and business people, with other jobs to do, and with limited experience in systems upgrades, testing, and project management. It\u2019s unreasonable to expect them to take on the upgrades of their investment systems. In fact, it\u2019s arguably unfair.<\/p>\n

It may not be any more reasonable or fair to expect vendors to deliver new versions of their investment systems with no software glitches. Vendors certainly know their systems. But they don’t know each client\u2019s environment. And companies need to run the systems, in their environments, using their processes and workflows to see if their requirements have been met and to ensure a coding change here hasn\u2019t created a problem there. And the vendor\u2019s timeframes might not be yours. Third- and fourth-quarter crunches for year-end reporting requirements don\u2019t leave much margin for error, let alone on-the-job training.<\/p>\n

What to do?<\/p>\n