Anyone who has ever worked in investment accounting or operations has heard these words. The real question, though, is how to actually do that, especially in the face of rising regulatory requirements, increasing asset complexity and the relentless growth of assets under management.
Our journey to do more with less began with outsourcing. Several years ago, primarily as a staff-augmentation play, we partnered with an offshore provider to manage our cash-reconciliation process. It was the traditional lift-and-shift approach: take our existing process, train offshore resources and have them replicate it. We then expanded this approach to other areas of accounting and operations, including corporate actions, asset servicing, collateral management, expense processing and financial-statement preparation. This worked for a time, but as our business evolved, so did the realization that true efficiency does not come from replication. It comes from transformation, both at the offshore partner and internally.
We frame it this way: outsourcing gave us capacity. What we needed next was capability.
That is where our focus on operational excellence began, rethinking how we work and how to scale without simply adding headcount.
Defining Operational Excellence
Operational excellence is not a single initiative or a program with an end date. Originating from Toyota’s continuous-improvement philosophy, it is a mindset that asks every day, How can we get better? Internally, we shaped this into three simple questions: Is it accurate? Is it reliable? Is it timely?
By staying true to our principles: accurate, reliable and timely work, and aligning our people, process and technology, we’re not just keeping up with growth; we’re shaping it.
These “A.R.T.” principles now form the foundation for evaluating every process, every tool and every interaction. They are principles that everyone across the organization can understand and contribute to.
When the answer to any of these questions is no, we look deeper. What in our people, process or technology needs to change?
People: Empowering the Drivers of Excellence
Our people are the true drivers of excellence. We have built programs that emphasize mentoring, development and empowerment, ensuring every team member has the tools and support to challenge processes and suggest better ways of working. We have also worked hard to empower employees to drive change. They are the ones in the seat. They know what works and what does not. We constantly encourage them to raise their hands with ideas.
Process: Reimagining the Way We Work
We are rethinking how we structure teams, streamline workflows and reduce handoffs. Initiatives such as creating centralized data hubs, consolidating settlement services and redesigning reconciliation controls aim to bring more transparency and agility to our operations.
The focus is continuous process improvement and moving away from static procedures toward processes that can adapt to change. Every process should contribute to our broader goal: delivering accurate, reliable and timely results that our business partners can trust.
Technology: Scaling Through Innovation
Technology is the great enabler of modern operations. As the scale and complexity of our business grow, evolving technology allows us to stay ahead. For us, this meant pushing development in a new direction. Within the last 24 months, we have served as beta testers and design partners with two vendors on new systems. Balancing that work with day-to-day responsibilities was challenging, but the investment paid off. Building and shaping the technology alongside the vendor ensured it was ultimately built to work for us. One step backward, five steps forward.
We also focused on giving teams the tools to make better decisions. Through management dashboards, automated reporting and integrated data environments, we now have real-time visibility into performance, exceptions and risk. The foundation for this was a conscious effort to ensure interoperability among all our systems. Instead of pulling data from multiple systems and merging it manually in Excel, we created a centralized golden-source data repository feed from all of our systems. Power BI and other visualization platforms sit on top, enabling faster, clearer and more confident decision-making.
From Outsourcing to Operational Excellence
Our journey began with outsourcing, but it is evolving into something much broader: a commitment to Operational Excellence as a way of life. The goal is not merely to “do more with less” by reducing costs, but to create a sustainable operating model that scales intelligently, improves continuously and delivers consistently high quality.
Operational excellence does not have a finish line. It is a culture of curiosity, accountability and collaboration. It is the recognition that excellence is not achieved once, but built every day through the small, disciplined choices that define how we work. By staying true to our principles of accurate, reliable and timely work, and by aligning our people, process and technology, we are not just keeping up with growth. We are shaping it. And that is how we will continue to do more with less, not by cutting corners, but by building smarter, stronger and together.
