LOST IN TRANSLATION

This week, we note that the quality of investment research output does not depend simply on the academic qualifications of the outsourcing firm’s employees.  Rather, it is more a function of experience in a similar setting or at least simulated environment and most critically, a driven motivation to excel in what appears to be a mundane task.

Very often, research support is just that – support – not an intellectual research project, but critical, nevertheless. Some client projects involve simple data collection from the internet or free public third party providers and/or coming up with well formatted tables for a report.  Even in such “simple” projects, rework/edits often becomes necessary if the expected project context or how the support output is going to be used is not presented to the outsourcing provider. Clearly, in a fast paced setting such as Investment Research Out-sourcing,  the client themselves cannot be responsible for explaining how the output should be used.

How then can both clients and the outsourcing provider minimize rework , increase quality and motivate employees in a mundane task?

In a nutshell, two ideas emerge:

(1) Responsible and  Responsive Outsourcing Provider Project management – where a constant dialogue between the IRO provider associates and an experienced (typically, a Wall Street senior analyst type) project manager helps better explain the project situation and expected results to his/her employees in a client’s absence or urgency. Second, a continuous client engagement model helps better handle similar situations in the future, based on client feedback.

(2) Superior training or knowledge transfer – can help motivate KPO employees in understanding why and how their tasks fit into the Wall Street research process. Today, as an example, some senior equity analysts are still write entire reports, format excel tables and update/fine-tune earnings models. Why? The end product vision is clearly in their sights, so the grunt work is quickly recognized as a supporting pillar or the important means to the end of investment research, which is successful investment decisions.

At ValAn Global, we strive to differentiate ourselves, through superior Wall Street type training on an ongoing basis and US based project management by research, not pure marketing personnel. Contact us via email or the phone number below to find out how we can help you further.

See also our earlier blog on why IRO ≠KPO