SS&C Teams With Fund Resources To Beef Up Consulting Services

SS&C has enlisted the services of Fund Resources to shore up any gaps in its new hedge fund and private wealth business unit which looks to advise clients on the implementation and operation of SS&C software.

Fund Resources specializes in consulting for business process review, front and back end operations, portfolio accounting and many other areas, and is largely made up of former consulting managers from Shepro Braun Systems (which was acquired by SS&C at the end of 1997) who have worked on SS&C products in the past. That made the prospect of an alliance very attractive to Scott Alderson, vice president and director of SS&C's hedge fund and private wealth business unit.

Fund Resources will help with implementations of SS&C products such as Total Return 2000, which targets hedge funds to deliver multi-currency investment management in a straight through processing environment, and AdvisorWare 2000, which delivers research, portfolio management, trading and operations functionality for investment advisors. "Fund Resources does system training, they do system implementation, and they'll do custom reporting and operation enhancement like automated reconciliation," says Alderson.

He also says that Fund Resources consultants will provide a helping hand in projects involving historical-data conversion for companies that are moving onto SS&C products but still need integration with legacy databases.

The consulting process at SS&C goes something like this: a client that has acquired a software package undergoes what is called a pre-implementation review, consisting of a total business requirements analysis. Next, a document outlining those requirements is drawn up and signed by the purchasing company to avoid misunderstandings. Then a detailed implementation plan is created that includes entity structures and sets up chart accounts for the general ledger. Finally, SS&C consultants ensure they have a realistic idea of all reporting requirements before implementation and training take place. Fund Resources has been enlisted to help SS&C perform all of those functions.

Alderson says SS&C has a vision for its technology that involves moving toward a consolidated sequel-server platform and incorporating online analytical processing (OLAP) tools for reporting. He also says the company is intent on developing XML messaging and is involved in prototyping tiered architectures that allow for higher data volumes and platform independence.

The nature of the alliance between the two companies will involve SS&C paying a fee to Fund Resources for their services. "They are basically an independent contractor of SS&C," says Alderson. "Basically working with Fund Resources is almost like bringing 10 more consultants into my shop," he adds, "so clients are going to have more subject matter experts that they can refer to at SS&C."