3 Ways Cloud-Based Platforms Are Transforming Financial Research

Cloud-based applications have become the norm in our personal lives, and over the last few years have infiltrated the workplace. Advancements in these applications have been nothing short of remarkable, leaving the client/server software of yesteryear behind.

According to Cisco, cloud-based applications will drive around 90 percent of total mobile data traffic by 2019.  For businesses, cloud apps serve a range of functions; from running payroll, to archiving digital communications for compliance, managing large-scale data and assets storage, and running complex tasks.

For financial institutions, cloud-based solutions can help teams overcome organizational challenges by integrating both content and collaboration tools into one platform — transforming the way investment professionals view and interact with financial research, news, company data and regulatory documents needed to make meaningful, actionable decisions.

Related Reading: Cloud Computing Market Trends to Watch in 2023

A new way to store and access data

Before cloud applications, the “old school” way to share information was through shared drives, email,  note-taking apps, or analog photo copies. This process requires meticulous content collection across teams — with content often kept in silos. Broker research is tagged manually to organize and maintain the most common content across companies. And inboxes pose another issue, as new reports flood in to be sorted, evaluated and distributed to the analysts who will benefit most.

Making sense of these data sources often leave key personnel spending more time managing data rather than focusing on investment decisions. Cloud-based solutions give businesses extended accessibility to data storage and computing power, with the flexibility to access information across devices. Cloud-based apps can be leveraged on both desktop and mobile devices seamlessly, providing a more holistic user experience across channels, without disrupting workflows.

With both research and external information in one place, knowledge can be easily shared across the organization — leveraging your team’s work while driving performance.

 

Better collaboration with cloud-based apps

The freedom to directly annotate and share documents with your entire investment team leads to more productive collaboration. In the past, a Portfolio Manager may have had to download a report, attach the entire PDF to an email, and send a generic note to an analyst to try and deduce any information that may be pertinent to a company they follow.

The ability to access, search, collaborate, and be alerted to timely information in a secure way is key for investment professionals to make alpha-producing investment decisions. Advanced cloud-based applications can auto-organize and make it seem effortless to search, annotate and share, allowing the analyst to focus on more meaningful tasks.

 

A more secure research experience

From an IT perspective, cloud-based apps also provide benefits such as no software maintenance, less disruptions to service, consistent performance and a lower cost of ownership. These apps can also provide security benefits from a disaster recovery perspective, like:

• End-to-end data encryption, in-transit and at rest, using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256
• Database, search engine and system drives that store user data separately
• System and processes that are regularly audited and tested by thirty party reputed IT
• Full accessibility to user access logs and complete adherence for compliance procedure

With information pervasive across all industry participants, “speed-to-knowledge” using a modern information retrieval toolset is what’s going to separate the alpha generators from the benchmark trailers.

Investment firms have been using AlphaSense to conduct research and stay ahead of the markets for years. We provide a unique, industry-leading research engine, collaboration and research management tool that is revolutionizing the overall investment process.