Kristoffer FürstSenior Vice President, Product Management, Arcesium · Limina Founder

"investment managers just want to shop"

Name: "investment managers just want to shop"
Uploaded: 2025-05-08T10:40:44+00:00
Duration: 1 min 21 s
Channel: Kristoffer Fürst
Description: Kristoffer Fürst argues that many investment managers skip designing a target operating model and instead ‘just want to shop’ for vendor systems. He…

8 May 2025 · 1 min

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1:21

Kristoffer Fürst argues that many investment managers skip designing a target operating model and instead ‘just want to shop’ for vendor systems. He observes that most managers favor a single-source-of-truth solution spanning front office through operations, and frames two central questions: (1) which provider is the right destination for a given firm, and (2) how to migrate from current state to that destination. He notes these choices are complex and depend on firm preferences, strategy, and the risks of consolidating with a single vendor.

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People just want to shop is a quote I heard recently from a excellent consultant. He felt that managers are often skipping over the step of figuring out which target operator model do I want and go straight into buying a system. The reason, I think we can see in the fact that at limina in 2025 so far only one discussion have we had where the investment manager didn't want a single source of truth solution with workflow spanning from the front office through operations. The ship on the target operating model I think has sailed. The two important questions that remain, however, are Number one, what is the provider that is the best for me in the end destination? And second, how did I get there given where I am today? These are both very hard questions to answer and they depend on you as a manager, your preferences, your firm, where you think you're heading, etc. When you pick one vendor to do more, you put more eggs in that single basket, so the basket matters more and how to get there. You're moving more eggs and that is a more complex process.