Consistency is the key

Broadridge Financial Solutions won Best outsourcing provider to the sell side in this year’s Sell‑Side Technology Awards thanks to its perennially successful Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) offering, which has won this category for the past six years. Broadridge’s Brian Hayes, Gurpreet Kaur and Jake Gravedoni discuss the reasons for the firm’s enduring success on the outsourcing front, and what the future has in store for the firm’s outsourcing business.

Broadridge has enjoyed considerable success in the Sell-Side Technology Awards over the years. What are the reasons for the firm’s consistent success in the outsourcing space? 

Brian Hayes, head of US settlements operations, Broadridge Financial Solutions:

• Transformative technology: Broadridge is one of the world’s premier financial services technology companies, with best-in-class solutions for front-, middle- and post-trade processing. Broadridge Business Process Outsourcing combines operational expertise with Broadridge core technologies and new innovations such as the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered OpsGPT.
• Expertise, ideas and advice: BPO is the employer of choice for the industry’s best middle-office, back-office and technology talent. More than 40% of our professionals came to us from clients’ operations departments, so they understand the business’s and firms’ needs. Our skilled teams ensure clients are running at maximum efficiency and getting the most out of Broadridge solutions and of technology from clients’ in-house developers and third parties.
• Operational resilience and risk management: As a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority-regulated broker-dealer, we understand the regulatory and risk management demands our clients face. Clients never worry about any drop-off in governance, control framework, data transparency or risk management. Our coverage moves across regions in step with our clients’ businesses in a follow-the-sun model, with locations in North America, Europe and Asia. Our clients see a material decrease in operational errors when moving to BPO.
• The BPO network: Our clients range from the world’s largest broker-dealers to boutique wealth and asset managers. We apply best practices derived from these engagements to ensure every client meets new industry requirements and is fully equipped to handle increasing processing volumes and manage market volatility at optimal efficiency and with minimum risk. The scale of our network ensures our clients have access to best-in-class operational solutions.

There are numerous reasons firms on both sides of the industry choose to partner with outsourcing providers. What are you hearing from the market right now about the drivers pushing firms to consider such partnerships? What are their foremost considerations?    

Gurpreet Kaur, head of international settlements operations, Broadridge Financial Solutions: Market demands continue to evolve. The days of focusing purely on cost are behind us. Firms now focus not only on cost reduction through labor arbitrage but also on how technology—particularly AI—can lend a helping hand to streamline processes and drive change that results in regulatory compliance, risk mitigation and cost reductions. Without integration of technology, firms will struggle to relieve margin pressures and mitigate risk in a volatile market environment, which can be challenging. This integration will allow businesses to continue to focus on facilitating growth initiatives and driving their bottom line. The need to do all of this while facilitating growth is the key. It’s not one or the other—it’s both. What we offer is:

• Tailor every engagement to our clients’ unique needs: Our services are flexible and component-based. Clients can outsource their entire operational functions from front office to post-trade, they can migrate any individual function on an à la carte basis, or they can call on Broadridge staff and solutions to augment and support internal resources.
• Accelerate business growth, while lowering operational costs. That’s the power of tech-led operations.
• Maximize efficiency: Improve straight-through processing and bolster operational efficiency, reducing overall operational spend while providing year-on-year savings.
• Provide enhanced transparency through real-time operational reporting and analytics to business stakeholders.
• Design an operating model for business growth without incurring a significant increase in operational expense.
• Reduce operational risk: Operational resilience and robust risk management solutions provide enhanced security, reliability and peace of mind.
• With our comprehensive risk analysis, proactive monitoring and contingency planning, clients can confidently navigate challenges and disruptions, ensuring the continuity of their business processes.

What is on Broadridge’s radar with regard to the future of its BPO business? What enhancements to the service do you have planned that will maintain BPO’s position and relevance in what is an increasingly competitive market?

Jake Gravedoni, head of client management, Broadridge BPO: We will continue to focus on being a technology-led BPO. For us, that means leading AI initiatives for back-office services and helping to drive automation for clients that results in cost and risk reductions. Technology solutions continue to evolve and so does our understanding of these solutions.

Some new enhancements we have on the horizon include integration into Broadridge’s Operations Console and OpsGPT:

• Broadridge’s Operations Console unifies operations through a single user interface that enables the tackling of day-to-day functions and manages access to information and systems.

• OpsGPT takes the Operations Console to the next level with the integration of generative AI (GenAI). We are currently in a trial program of this application with a large investment bank. We are seeing that the integration of these workflows with GenAI creates a deeper step change in productivity and governance for operations. Broadridge has already been successful in creating generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) applications, such as BondGPT, LTX’s GenAI application for corporate bond trading used daily by more than 700 traders, as well as BroadGPT, which is an internal tool for all 14,000-plus associates to use to assist with their day-to-day functions.

Through the use of Broadridge technology, our operational teams are able to:

• Improve operational control with real-time dashboards and notifications.
• Improve operational efficiency and scalability, leveraging a chat-based interface.
• Use the power of GenAI to parse through complex data and gain relevant business and risk insights.
• Drive risk reduction by limiting human intervention.
• Expand their service offerings.

 

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