Data Management Redefined

Asset management is a data-driven business, says Sébastien Gautier, global head of technology for commercial and shared functions at AXA Investment Managers. That is why teams throughout AXA IM are in the process of redefining its data management strategy.

AXA IM hopes to boost its competitiveness in Europe and other world markets as the three-stage project is completed in 2018. The Paris-based firm has €623 billion ($669 billion) in assets under management and 2,300 employees across 21 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

"This is a global initiative-‘global' is very important, as we need to migrate from a Europe-centered set-up to a follow-the-sun set-up in order to properly serve our businesses in the Americas and Asia," Gautier says.

A strategic study conducted last summer identified three phases for the project, he adds.

The first phase, which began early this year, is transforming data management in organizational processes and corporate policy. This involves a review of the data management team and clarifies the role of all the parts of the business in this regard.

The second phase, beginning at the end of the second quarter, is building a "data factory," AXA IM will select a master data management solution and migrate the firm's entire reference data universe to that single platform.
The third stage is expanding the firm's data distribution capacity, Gautier adds.

Data As Core Capability

Gautier says that AXA IM, as a firm, has been very explicit that asset managers are in the business of data and it will therefore keep data stored in-house as much as possible to implement the project. Not only do fund managers need accurate and timely data to make efficient decisions, regulators also want a higher level of quality data than ever before, according to Gautier.

"There are some things we will outsource," he says. "But the point is to keep value-added services inside the company, while staying keen to explore opportunities for non-value-added tasks or systematic controls and production tasks."

AXA IM already leverages its own subsidiaries in markets such as India for the outsourcing of non-core processes. "But we believe data management is core business for an asset manager," says Gautier.

Along with regulation, "there is an indirect impact coming from information security rules, where we need to be very strict about access rights and the visibility of data. This is in the nature of our industry, but also due to the very strong objectives that are set at group level for all AXA entities."

Data strategy also enables AXA IM's digital strategy, says Gautier. "We have to develop our capability for our external clients-whether for online reporting or access to specific data or functionalities restricted to some clients-so we need to have strong data quality and the proper distribution functions in order to enable such a strategy."

Gautier says he's not yet certain at this stage which solution AXA IM will employ for the master data management platform. "I'm not sure there is a decent offering on the market right now that would suit us, considering the scope of data we are looking at."

But whatever tool AXA IM chooses, the firm has stated a strong resolution to "adopt, not adapt," says Gautier. "The point is not to try to make a solution work like we want it to work, but for us to adapt to what the vendor provides off the shelf. Customizing systems costs a fortune and makes your information systems too complex and expensive."

Ultimately, Gautier says, his firm wants to see a "step-change in the quality of data managed within our company"-a step-change crucial to the functioning of any asset manager that wants to thrive.