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Morley Fund Management

"BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management provides a unified view of the cost of running our business—contributing to the intelligence on which we base informed decisions."

Andrew Steward
Management Information and Financial Systems Manager
Morley

Challenge

Morley is the UK-based fund management arm of Aviva, the world’s fifth largest insurance group and the biggest in the United Kingdom. Aviva is a leading provider of insurance, investment, and savings products in Europe.

Morley provides a broad and diversified range of investment funds services to institutional and wholesale investors. With over 250 clients and a complex range of portfolios—including private equity and hedge funds—Morley was finding it increasingly difficult to calculate the costs of serving each of these customers.

Andrew Steward, management information and financial systems manager at Morley, explains, "Over the past six years, Morley has become a more commercially focused company. We’ve worked hard to become one of the most cost-efficient fund management firms in the industry, and we’ve made great strides in increasing profitability. To support this effort, we felt it was appropriate to undergo a detailed review of the activities that drive our costs and gain a more complete understanding of how this affects the profitability of our business."

Approach

Morley’s first step was to reshape the business through a joint venture initiative with JP Morgan, designed to provide a more flexible investment administration service. Morley then turned its attention to identifying and managing the costs of major activities performed in each process across the organization. "This exercise highlighted potential areas where processes could be reengineered," says Steward, "as well as helping to channel sales efforts towards the most profitable products and channels. Following a review of the marketplace, we selected BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management."

The BusinessObjects™ Profitability and Cost Management application enables Morley’s senior managers to better understand the cost and profitability of its clients and asset classes, providing, in certain instances, profitability analysis down to individual fund managers. Other key benefits offered by the application include:

• Information contributing to the business intelligence used for decision-making
• Senior managers have an accurate view of the profitability of clients and products
• The cost of running the business is presented in a unified view

A key component of Business Objects enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions, Activity Analysis enables Morley to manage models across the business and streamline the data collection process.

Results

The application helps Morley understand its business better and maximize its potential. Steward notes a number of key benefits, saying, "With BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management, we can assess the profitability of current or potential funds. Based on these findings, we make more informed decisions about how we allocate our resources, in a faster and more reliable way than we could before."

In the future, Steward expects the application to play a more strategic role in improving the understanding of costs and profitability across the business. "BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management will help us to capture detailed information about activities conducted by all areas of the organization," says Steward. "This will provide a unified view of the cost of running our business—giving us advanced intelligence on which to base informed decisions."

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Quick Facts

• Industry:
  Financial services
• Business pain:
  With more than 250 clients and a complex range of portfolios, Morley was finding it increasingly difficult to identify and manage the costs of serving its customers.
• Why Business Objects?
  After a review of the marketplace, Morley felt that BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management was the only solution that could help it understand the cost and profitability of its clients and asset classes.
• Business Objects products and services:
  BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management