OMS Trading Systems Implementation

Key Challenges

A $60 billion public pension fund engaged InvestTech to assist with the evaluation and selection of a trade order management system and to provide best practice advice in the OMS space, as well as to provide advice on operational efficiencies by the use of industry utilities to settle and communicate trade data. The project included the implementation of Charles River’s CRIMS system and Bloomberg’s POMS system. InvestTech also assisted with the selection and implementation of a trade aggregator product and the implementation of the Omgeo suite of products including Oasys, Alert and TradeMatch. In addition, InvestTech provided expertise in designing and developing data interfaces in order for these and other applications to share data in a seamlessly integrated method.

InvestTech Solution

InvestTech’s involvement and responsibilities were multi-faceted and demonstrated the breadth of knowledge and depth of experience within the InvestTech team. InvestTech served as overall project manager, which involved developing and executing an integrated project plan with resources provided by multiple firms, including management of the vendor’s resources. Business Analyst roles were filled by InvestTech staff, which also complemented the vendor and client project teams. As the technical lead, InvestTech designed the interface and data workflow architecture, conducted specific technical tasks and coordinated efforts with both the client and vendor teams. Systems Integration Testing as well as User Acceptance Testing tasks were designed and executed throughout the project, to provide for a high level of quality assurance. InvestTech resources also lead interface testing between the vendor systems to ensure end-to-end data quality. Lastly, InvestTech also provided implementation and production support resources who worked closely with the client’s business users to ensure the implementation was carefully executed to minimize any disruptions to business processes. Once the integrated systems were implemented, InvestTech also provided production support to assist the client with maximizing the use of their newly implemented systems and processes.

Results

The client successfully replaced two legacy OMS systems with one integrated solution. The streamlining and integration of this solution reduced manual entry activities for the portfolio managers and traders. This was accomplished by providing position and analytic data within the integrated environment to allow the fixed income team to quickly generate and electronically route orders to and from TradeWeb and MarketAxess for execution. Likewise, the equity portfolio managers and traders are now also able to consolidate order generation and order execution within the integrated environment, instead of using spreadsheets and their resultant propensity for errors. FIX integration and the addition of the Omgeo Oasys products also allows the trading desk to gain additional efficiencies and to reduce errors. The investment operations and settlements group also now leverages consistent operational processes across the firm’s multiple trading desks. Further, the use of the Omgeo products improved the timeliness and accuracy of trade confirmations between the client and brokers. The trade aggregator and the utilization of the SWIFT/ISO protocol allows the client to communicate using industry standard protocols, which provides the client with a high level of accuracy and consistency when communicating transactional information to the Investment Accounting System and other external Interested Parties.

Why InvestTech?

InvestTech’s experience with complex investment systems implementation and integration efforts was critical in dealing with several new systems and processes being brought into production, and at the same time retiring legacy systems for the equity, fixed income and cash management trading desks. This effort was accomplished without any impact on day-to-day operations, including the seamless transition of the client’s operations team, custodians, interested parties and brokers to the new solution. InvestTech’s expertise with investment operations, trading and industry trade settlement and communication utilities, coupled with trade order management experience as well as a knowledgeable systems integration team, made this multi-product implementation project a resounding success.