With great change comes great challenges

• 2nd November, 2017
• John Ikel

In today’s market, the biggest challenge for many market data teams is one of time management in a time of great change. New regulations are coming in. Rules around how data is being used are changing, coupled with new fees for usage, increased scrutiny from the providers themselves, and everyone looking to protect their IP. On top of this, teams are getting smaller placing the responsibility for managing this increased data risk on the shoulders of fewer team members, or even just one or two managers as the bulk of the day-to-day work is off-shored / near-shored to more economical resources with less market data expertise and experience.

These events collide at the same time as the Business often demand that Market Data, that central fount of knowledge for any-and-all “data” coming into the firm, keep them immediately informed on risk levels, licensing costs, who is using what, as well as asking them to procure more data with increased rights of use but at a lower cost of service.

I have spent the last 15 years managing this kind of situation, long searching for an interconnected toolset which did it all.

I needed my inventory system to link to my entitlements system so the financials were driven by the entitlements.

I needed one or both to link into a business intelligence and data compliance tool to help me make sense of what was going where, particularly with regards to applications, and would make managing audits so much easier.

To do that I needed the compliance tool to link into a database that had the usage rights for every service from every provider that I was taking data from; so I could pinpoint gaps that were going to cause me problems in my licensing because it isn’t always obvious and I cannot store everything in my head (despite trying!).

I also needed to be able to summarise everything and determine what services needed to be procured whilst also confirming that the thing that everyone in the Business / IT Development think they want is actually the best-in-class and most cost-efficient solution available.

The first thing I wanted was an application usage tracking tool.
I tried building it myself; but Excel only gets you so far and has its own limitations having superstar status on most people’s desktop.
I tried getting it built internally; but there was no budget or resource to even kick-start it.
I tried reaching out to various companies to get them to build it; but everyone I spoke to in a 7-year period either wasn’t interested, failed to deliver what I needed, or simply took some of my ideas and went their own way.

Then, over the summer, the unexpected happened. One door closed but another opened and the universe offered an opportunity to get involved in building something special. To take a little-known tool that was already part of a rich and established product offering and make it even better, as well as building the team behind it. Effectively, put my time (and someone else’s money) where my mouth is. It’s challenging, amazing, frustrating, and amazing (again!). To find out more, please email me on jikel@3di-ltd.com.