If you're still not convinced of the benefits of automation, or are dealing with doubters elsewhere in the organization, this blog can help
Control rooms are an enterprise financial firm's nerve center. The nexus through which all deal-related data must pass to be organized, analyzed, and recorded. But as important to the safe and profitable operation of company as they are, control rooms are typically run with a skeleton crew: maybe five or six people, responsible for keeping potential conflicts of interest in check for hundreds or even thousands of deals, all simultaneously in motion and with all the crisscrossing data that activity implies.
Safe and profitable. There's the rub. Deals must be cleared quickly, so business isn't lost. But speediness mustn't compromise diligence: making sure no internal or external lines are crossed that shouldn't be. It's the battle control room teams fight every day, armed perhaps only with spreadsheets and email chains. But winning this 21st century war with 20th century weapons is getting more and more difficult. Regulation is on the rise globally, more and more deals are being done across borders and trading blocs, and financial institutions themselves are operating at an increasingly complex level.
Automation can help. We promise. But if you're still not entirely convinced, or are perhaps looking for a few more talking points to put before firm leadership, the following may help.
If you're seeing turnover in your control room team, more than you're used to or more than you want, automation can make all the difference. The right control room software will organize the torrent of information coming in, automate the most time consuming and mind numbing aspects of managing it, and allow your high performers to do the higher cognition work they ought to be doing anyway.
Or even if they don't seem overtaxed, it could be that whatever manual or semi-manual control room "system" is in place isn't providing them with the information they need, in the proper format, to do what they need to do. Sizable firms have a surfeit of zigzagging deal data that needs to be corralled and catalogued. But even smaller firms need to keep a close eye on watch lists and restricted lists. Control room software isn't just for the big investment banks anymore.
Because the clock is ticking for the deal team, it's also ticking for the control room team. Good control room software will not only remove the worst of the manual burden your control room team is facing in sorting through the facts at hand, but also provide the most complete picture of the situation. So if your firm has seen a decrease in the number of deals successfully completed, the right software could turn things around.
And it will be eternally audit ready, at any point in the deal lifecycle. This capability would apply to internal as well as external audits. Control room software with good recordkeeping capacity can also offer increased peace of mind to control room employees, i.e., the ability to understand the particulars of how a deal was handled can provide visibility into not just a job poorly done but also a job well done.