25 Years of Global Insights: The Definitive Checklist for Investment Management System Success (Part 2 of 3)
- Ebbe Kjaersbo
- 15 hours ago
- 9 min read
Replacing a legacy investment management system is a strategic opportunity and at the same time a significant undertaking. Not only for the organisation and its underlying infrastructure but also for the teams driving the transformation. Navigating questions and concerns around vendor contract, budget, operating model, functional requirements, methodology, timelines, and resource allocation can be overwhelming.
What should the new system be able to support? Which project approach should be adopted? How long is it going to take? How many people do we need and which skillsets will be required? These are just some of the many questions needed to be answered when embarking on a large-scale transformation project.
About This Series
Drawing on Dimensional Community’s 25+ years of global implementation experience through our consultancy network, we have identified the patterns that lead to success and the pitfalls that cause delays. While every organisation is unique, certain core principles remain universal.
This 3-part article series provides a strategic framework for your transformation and migration, serving as a practical checklist to guide discussions before, during, and after your go-live.
Part 1: (published in January): Pre-Project Planning & Foundation: Vendor strategy, operating model, project management, and change management
Part 2: Implementation & Execution: Core phases, data migration, testing, and stakeholder engagement
Part 3 (coming in March): Go-Live & Beyond: Transition planning, post-implementation support, and operational excellence
What is Covered in Part 2
In this second of a three-part series insights article, we move beyond the foundation and planning phase to the implementation project itself and address each phase of this in more detail.
Specifically in this second article we will address the following topics:
1. Prioritizing Outcomes Over Features
When gathering business requirements, shift the focus from what a system does and how it should work to why a requirement exists. The goal of a transformation is to evolve, not just to replicate. Often, current processes are legacy-driven; shortcuts or manual steps created simply to bypass the limitations of an old system. If a requirement doesn't contribute direct value to the future investment process, it may be a candidate for elimination.
A common mistake in RFPs is asking isolated yes/no questions. Most vendors will comply with each of the three standalone requirements below, but the real test is how those features interact together. As an example, take these common requirements related to performance measurement:
Standard approach:
Does the system support multiple benchmarks?
Can different weights be applied when aggregating benchmarks?
Does it support attribution and analytics?
Strategic approach:
Can the system calculate returns, attribution, and analytics simultaneously for the same data set against multiple benchmarks using different aggregation weights?
This compound approach to questioning reveals whether a system has the underlying architecture to handle complex workflows or if it relies on redundant, manual calculations to get the job done.
The objective of a system transformation should always be to get more out of the new system compared to an existing legacy system. You should always challenge the status quo and don’t let your thinking be constrained by your current system’s UI or output. For example, if your team currently prints a physical report, don’t just ask for a print function. Instead, ask for real-time data visualisation that renders the paper report obsolete. Focus on the end result, not just the traditional path from A to B.
2. Aligning Scope and Expectation
A common friction point in system transformation and migrations is the interpretation gap where vendors often view an RFP as a wish list, while the client views it as a fixed and non-negotiable scope. Misalignment here is the primary cause of mid-project change requests, budget inflation, and timeline shifts.
When drafting RFP requirements, you should pivot from how a process is currently managed to what success looks like, thereby defining the desired outcomes, such as automated trade matching, reconciliation and settlement, rather than document manual sign-offs during the approval process.
To mitigate this risk, the transition from the RFP to the Clarification and Design phase must be seamless. During this stage, vendors conduct workshops to finalise and formalise the scope and produce solution documents. The most critical outcome from this is to ensure a strict traceability matrix. You must be able to map every proposed solution back to a specific RFP requirement. Without this link, it can become very difficult to verify if the functionality you are paying for and what is being delivered actually matches the desired outcome.
This is where an independent advisor like Dimensional Community provides essential oversight. We act as translators, bridging the gap between technical vendor specifications and the client's business language. By ensuring both parties are in total agreement on the "What" and the "How" from the beginning, we help you eliminate the risk of costly scope creep and ensure the new system's capabilities are fully realized.
3. Choosing the Right Methodology: Configuration vs. Development
A common misconception is treating the implementation of an investment management system as a software development project. This often leads to the suggestion of an Agile approach. However, implementing a premier investment management system is primarily a configuration exercise, not a coding one.
Because these platforms often rely on locked-in business workflows and rigid data hierarchies, a Waterfall approach is preferable and usually more effective. Attempting to be fully Agile in a system with strict linear dependencies can lead to architectural dead ends.
Whichever approach a client chooses, or a combination of the two, a successful implementation requires respecting and following the natural data and workflow sequence upon which the system is designed whilst taking any dependencies between functional teams into account.
In non-flush and fill systems like SimCorp One, the workflow follows a fixed chain:
Foundational Data: Core structures, third-party data, and Security Master static data must be established first.
Transaction & Holdings: Transactions are then loaded to generate holdings.
Valuation: Market data must be integrated before market/exposure values can be calculated.
Analytics & Reporting: Only once the previous steps are validated can you accurately calculate accounting values, returns, risk, and attribution for downstream reporting.
By generally applying a Waterfall methodology, you ensure each layer is verified and signed off before moving to the next. This prevents a "house of cards" scenario where an error in the initial static data setup invalidates months of work in the reporting layer.
The goal is to align your project plan with the logical flow of the system, rather than trying to force a development methodology onto a configuration-heavy migration.
4. Managing the Configuration Deployment Pipeline
A successful implementation relies on maintaining multiple, distinct environments typically designated for Configuration, Testing, Golden Copy, and Production. The integrity of the entire project depends on how strictly you manage the promotion of configuration and settings between these versions.
To ensure consistency, you should ensure to establish a one-way promotion path, so configuration changes always flow in a single direction. This prevents configuration drift, where a configuration change made in a testing environment is forgotten and never makes it to the live system.
Configuration (DEV): Where the initial design, build and sandbox testing occurs.
Testing (TEST): Where the client conducts unit testing of each solution and deliverable provided by the vendor
User Acceptance Testing (UAT): A stable environment for business users to validate approved configuration and workflows.
Golden Copy (GOLD): The "Source of Truth" containing only signed-off, pristine configuration without business data (transactions or market data)
Production (PROD): The final, live environment in which the final data migration takes place.
It is highly advisable to adopt and maintain a technical discipline when it comes to deployments. If your system supports automated configuration transport, such as the file-based export/import functionality in SimCorp One, it is vital to leverage it. Manual configuration is the leading cause of human-error issues identified during UAT and Go-live.
Two golden rules apply for deployment of configuration changes across environments:
Maintain a Transparent Audit Trail: Every promotion must be logged (who, what, where, and when). This is your insurance policy if a system behaviour changes unexpectedly.
Sequential Integrity: Always import configuration in the exact chronological order it was exported. Failing to do so can inadvertently roll back critical settings to an earlier, broken state.
When planning your phases, ensure to account for regular refreshes of downstream environments. Maintaining an up-to-date GOLD environment has limited value unless DEV and UAT are also refreshed regularly with the latest configuration.
5. Managing the Knowledge and Resource Gap
The configuration phase is where the project's conceptual design becomes a reality. Solutions are typically delivered in drops, allowing for unit testing and early familiarisation. However, many organisations are blindsided by the sheer volume of work this requires from their own staff.
The Reality of Resource Ratios
System vendors typically expect a high level of client engagement during the transformation project. Your internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are the lifeblood of this phase; they must provide source data, answer complex queries, and validate that solutions meet business needs.
During this period, you should not expect your SMEs to be available for much if any Business-As-Usual (BAU) tasks. Expecting them to manage both their daily roles and a major migration is a primary cause of project burnout and delays.
Bridging the Expertise Gap
While your in-house team understands your business, they may not yet be familiar with and understand the technical language of the new system. This creates a steep and often costly learning curve. Engaging with an independent consultancy like Dimensional Community provides two distinct advantages, as illustrated here:
Success Through Partnership
The need for system experience on the client side of the table is often undervalued. By augmenting your team with external experts, you don't just fill a seat, you gain a strategic partner dedicated to ensuring a successful project delivered on-time and on-budget with the final platform optimised for your specific investment process.
6. Bridging the Gap from Testing to Operational Readiness
In large-scale implementations, there is often a temptation to leave testing entirely to a dedicated Quality Assurance (QA) team. While professional testers are essential for System Integration Testing (SIT), they cannot replace the business end-users during User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
UAT is more than just a checklist; it is the final sign-off and the moment the organisation confirms the system is fit for purpose. Involving end-users at this stage is critical for two reasons:
Accountability: As the ultimate owners of the daily processes, end-users must be the ones to provide the final sign-off on deliverables.
Experiential Learning: Hands-on testing is the most effective form of training. It allows users to navigate the specific business workflows they will manage daily, transforming abstract concepts into practical knowledge.
It is also critical for testers to have the functional knowledge to sign-off. Simply following a script written by someone else is not an applicable approach for a complex investment management system.
Organisations without a dedicated internal test team can significantly benefit from partnering with a third-party consultancy like Dimensional Community. We provide accelerators, library of test cases/scrips and the structured oversight needed to lead the QA process for both large and small organisations, including but not limited to:
Compiling and documenting comprehensive test cases.
Executing initial unit testing to smoke test the configuration solutions.
Managing the UAT defect log to ensure the vendor remains accountable.
Provide hands-on support to end-users during UAT.
Even with external support, we still advocate for heavy end-user involvement in UAT to ensure the steep learning curve is conquered before the go-live date.
For end user training to be effective, it should occur prior to UAT and, crucially, take place in the client’s own system installation. Using the organisation’s actual data and configured workflows ensures that the training is relevant and that users are familiarising themselves with the exact environment they will use on Day 1.
For additional information and guidance on quality assurance and testing in SimCorp One, please refer to our case study on our website.
What's Next?
In this instalment, we have navigated the core pillars of a successful system implementation, moving beyond basic functionality to prioritising strategic outcomes over features. We explored the critical balance of aligning scope with expectations and the technical rigor of managing configuration deployment. Finally, we addressed the human and operational bridge in closing the resource and knowledge gap and ensuring the project successfully transitions from a testing environment to true operational readiness.
In Part 3 of this insight series, we shift focus to the data migration, go-live event and operational life beyond. We dive into the critical importance of a successful data migration and cut-over orchestration to the vital Hypercare period in the first couple of months post go-live.
Most importantly for the organisation having embarked on this transformation project, we shift the focus from merely surviving going live to embracing the possibilities of the new system and platform, exploring how to leverage a scalable architecture to evolve your operations, expand your reach, and finally realize the full growth potential and ROI of your investment.
Ready to discuss your transformation journey? Dimensional Community's consultants bring over 25 years of implementation experience to help you navigate every phase of your investment management system transformation. Contact us to learn how we can support your project from strategy through to operational excellence.
