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Who is Limina's Investment and Portfolio Management Software for
It's near impossible (and not a good idea) for a product to be everything to everyone, due to the unique needs of different asset managers. At Limina, we build, deliver and service one product, the Limina Investment Management System. To save as much of your time as possible, we have made this article of 5 aspects that will help you find out if Limina could be a great fit for YOU.
Kristoffer Fürst CEO and Co-founder looks at when the Limina Investment Management System might be the right fit
5 aspects to determine whether the Limina Investment Portfolio Management Software is right for your firm
1. Enterprise AND cloud-native
You are looking for a system that will fit your operations workflows and investment processes. For example, you would like compliance rules to be configurable, data import and export jobs to be set up by business users (and not require developers) and a security master that connects to all your current and future sources.
In other words, you would like the solution to fit into your existing ecosystem of solutions and service providers without imposing unnecessary change.
If you want to explore Institutional Portfolio Management Software further, we've got you covered.
2. Holistic front-to-middle office solution
You're looking for a front-to-mid office solution covering Investment Book of Record and data quality controls within the same solution. Furthermore, you want a setup where compliance, IBOR, Portfolio Management System and Order Management System are all in the same solution.
You would like workflows for the front and middle office to be designed end to end to be as efficient and robust as possible.
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3. An open platform
You have an ecosystem of service providers and systems, such as execution systems, custodians, excel, terminals and more. You want to retain the autonomy to choose these systems, data sources and service providers.
Then you want the Investment Management Platform to connect as seamlessly as possible to them all, from day one. And you want it to be as smooth as possible as your integration needs develop over time.
4. Empowering Users (PMs and operations) with the best tools
This probably goes without saying, but you prioritise attracting and retaining the best talent in the front and middle office. You want to EMPOWER your team with the best tools for their work such as exception-based workflows, great analytics and a modern user experience in the browser.
You also want to ensure they're looking at accurate data and complete portfolios at all times. This is enabled by Limina not "just" being an Order Management System, but underpinned by a live extract Investment Book of Record.
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5. A partnership with your vendor
Finally, you want a partner relationship with your vendor, to ensure that your needs within the front-to-middle office and data management are being listened to by the (partner) vendor and supported over time. You want to be supported by people with experience from the industry who understand your unique business.
Limina is more than just a software provider, we are a strategic partner, and our experts work closely with you and act as an extension of your own team.
As true a partner, we're also open with then we're not a great fit. You can read about that in detail here.
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Is Limina IMS for you? Book a demo to see it in action
We hope our video and blog were helpful and gave you a feel for whether Limina's cloud-based Investment Portfolio Management Software might be a good fit for you. As former Asset Managers ourselves, we've procured systems and know how difficult it can be to pick vendors apart. In order to further assist you in this process, we've created a guide to choosing the best IMS for your firm.
If you have questions or would like to know more about our investment portfolio management software, please don’t hesitate to contact us. You can also book a demo with our team to see our tools in action to learn more about Limina can help your firm achieve your goals.
Get the latest research, insights and comparisons
FINDING 1
Finding: Firms that rely heavily on spreadsheets, are less likely to rate it as a problem. They’re less likely to identify the time lost in spreadsheet maintenence. The study cites this as a revelation.
My take: Of course! That’s the reason someone pushes spreadsheet usage too far. Otherwise, the spreadsheets would've been replaced already. Not a revelation :-)
FINDING 2
Finding: 73% say their firm/department wastes time on spreadsheets.
My take: I wouldn’t have asked the question like this. If the survey respondent is the CEO, then it would work. But for all other roles, the question is asked in a way that it’s possible to answer “yes” and consider someone else to be the “time waster”. If the question would’ve been “do YOU waste time on spreadsheets” the answer wouldn’t have been 73%. This is why the problem doesn’t get adressed.
FINDING 3
Finding: The firms that rely on spreadsheets are more likely concerned with flexibility.
My take: This surprised me. No system is more flexible than Excel by definition - because in Excel you can build anything. Systems are limited in what they support, even “almost everything” is less than Excel. Not sure what else to say, I’d love to be able to ask followup questions here - too bad I don’t have insights into who the respondents are (please DM me if you're one of them!)
Do you agree with the survey findings or my take? See you in the comments 👇
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48% of Limina’s clients transitioned from spreadsheets to our investment management platform. Most would cite “outgrown Excel” as the reason, and less so the detailed level of reasons covered in this survey.
Link to article in the comments. It's biased towards hedge funds. My guess would be it translates reasonably well to asset managers, but less so for asset owners. What's your take?
Quick recap for those unfamiliar with IBOR: it's how a system approaches positions & cash (i.e. portfolio views). Which type of IBOR is a fundamental consideration of any front, middle or back office system - that is often overlooked in a selection process, until it's too late.
Those of you who followed my posts on IBOR lately are familiar with this 3-bucket categorisation:
Gen-➀ Flush & Fill ("not a real IBOR"-IBOR). Video on IBOR generation 1: https://lnkd.in/gAdWEZjS
Gen-➁ Rolling Balance (what this post is about)
Gen-➂ Live-extract (generate any portfolio view past, present, projected - with confidence in preliminary cash, etc). Limina takes this approach, to overcome the problems of Gen-1 & 2 🙂
⚠️ Top 2 problems with the Rolling Balance IBOR:
➀ Too slow for Front Office ("eventually complete"). For example, cash movements can arrive T-1
➁ Based on 1 time-series (NAV/accounting view), so all Front Office views are still adjustments. Makes it very clunky or impossible to plan future transactions. Examples:
- usually an incomplete cash ladder (e.g. missing preliminary deposits)
- can't match exposure day-by-day effectively (e.g. vs benchmark today, T+1, T+2)
- weak support for asset re-allocations that have a time component (e.g. external managers / PE-funds / private investments)
Do you agree or disagree? Comment below
PS. Limina's investment management platform is a Gen-3 IBOR
PS2. Tap the double-bell 🔔🔔 located top right of my profile (under the banner), and you'll be notified when I post
BACKGROUND
I buy a lot of software and am taken through sales processes. Most of the time, the first/second meeting is a PowerPoint presentation. If I'm lucky, it's just a few slides and then a demo. But often, it's a massive slide deck, without the information I want (use cases, pricing, etc).
If I see a slide with a map of the provider's office, I just want to close down teams/meet/zoom.
Limina is guilty of this approach as well. In the past, we've had slides including "about us".
But we've learnt and adapted. Now, we're using our website and a demo environment.
REASON 1 - OUT OF RESPECT
We make the first meeting/demo interactive. We listen to what software the potential client is looking for, and why. We might end up advising, for example discussing operating models (and not talk about Limina's investment management software at all).
When we "present", we use a demo environment. We go back-and-forth between the demo and our website.
For example, we might point to a section on the website about how we help investment managers spend less time on daily workflows in the front and middle office. Then we show the examples listed in the demo (likely tailored by the role of who's in the meeting).
This is because in a first meeting, you most likely want to figure out if we're a provider you'd like to evaluate further. Where our offices are located is unlikely relevant for that decision.
REASON 2 - BECAUSE WE'RE TRANSPARENT
We don't hide things from clients, potential clients or anyone else for that matter.
If we have information in a slide deck that is relevant for a potential client, that information should go on the website so anyone can see it without having to contact us first. Examples include functional coverage and pricing.
It's how we want to buy software in 2025. So it's how businesses should sell in 2025.
PS. Image from yesterday in Ischgl, Austria & Switzerland
PS2. Tap the double-bell 🔔🔔 located top right of my profile (under the banner), and you'll be notified when I post
Signing an NDA to get access to information like pricing or detailed feature capabilities is an outdated approach, mainly by vendors of the last millennium. There is no good reason in 2025 for a provider to hide their product from potential clients. Just writing that sentence feels ridiculous.
Anyway, this is an outdated practice. A provider that wants an NDA, will very likely have outdated practices in other places as well, including product development. So it’s a good signal that it’s not a “provider of the future”.
In summary:
YOU can ask the vendor for an NDA.
But the vendor shouldn't ask YOU for an NDA.
If they do, just move on to the next provider :-)
I share free advice, tactics, research, opinions, etc - here on LinkedIn. I want it to be as valuable as possible for you. Which is why I ask: what do you want me to talk about?
* What do you want me to talk more about? topics? tactical or strategic? opinions?
* What do you want less of?
* Do you have a preference on format (text, illustrations, talking video)?
* Is there any type of research or stats you think I (or our team) might be in a good position to produce and share?
Comment of DM
Do you feel I’m already doing the best work possible? Just like this post please 😆 and turn on notifications (go to my profile and tab double-bell under the banner)
Candidates for automation via exception-based workflows:
* perform any type of recurring data transformation in a spreadsheet, i.e. same transformation more than once
* have reminders on the calendar
* perform any tasks that can be described as “check that X”
I get that it’s always been done this way. So it’s ingrained in our thinking. Your team just opens up Excel and don’t even think about it as a manual process.
But it often is. And it’s sad. Because significant efficiency improvements (2x+) are left on the table.
I strongly believe that workflow efficiency should be given a larger emphasis in system selections. Most RFI/RFPs focus on features (yes/no).
A client of Limina saved 50% on their entire operational cost when changing from another system to us. And it's not a one-off case study, we have more cases that are in the same ballpark. The saving is due to a unique approach to workflow automation (exception-based workflows) which isn't a dream. Exception-based workflows really do provide massive efficiency improvements, in the real world, here and now.
These benefits aren't uncovered with a simple yes/no answer checklist.
Tactical advice:
* Use an RFI checklist to shortlist vendors (functional coverage, security questions, etc)
* Then use proof-of-value, demos, business cases to pick the best providers among the shortlisted
The difference between providers might look like <5% on paper. But in reality, it can be more than 2x! As the referenced case study highlights
I'd love to hear your perspective - why isn't this approach taken most of the time?
And what do you think about the car analogy (see image)?
Join the conversation in the comments below.
PS. Tap the double-bell 🔔🔔 located top right of my profile (under the banner), and you'll be notified when I post
If you’re buying complex software, such as investment technology, a system selection consultant/advisor can be invaluable:
1. They can advise on operating models, i.e. what types of software kits to select (all-in-one vs best-of-breed, etc) depending on what you're aiming to achieve. They know what others have selected, and why.
2. They know the provider landscape already, so you get that knowledge “for free” without having to do the research yourself. Often a shortlist is assembled quickly and in a cost-effective way
3. They’re skilled at getting to the truth, cutting through providers trying to hide product shortcomings for example (sadly, it happens)
⚠️ BUT.... And it’s a big BUT: ensure your incentives are aligned!
Most system selections consultants are formally independent today. I.e there aren't kickback agreements with vendors.
That doesn’t mean they’re unbiased.
Consider, do they also have a professional services arm that does implementation work? If so, there >could< be a bias (unconscious or not) towards suggesting systems that are complicated to implement.
In all honesty, I know many system selection firms and consultant. Only on 2 occasions has the above been an issue. All others go over and beyond to keep their advise clean and truly unbiased 🌟
What's your experience?
PS. Tap the double-bell 🔔🔔 located top right of my profile (under the banner), and you'll be notified when I post
Regardless of your role, I really think this is worth watching.
Admittedly, I'm biased when I say that. However, this is a decade of knowledge and more than 200 hours of active work to simplify concepts, understand systems and use cases - distilled into just 19 minutes and 38 seconds.
You'll watch it once, and understand a vast amount more about any system you - or your team - use in the investment lifecycle, from Front, through Middle, to Back Office.
In the video, I go into depth on:
* What an IBOR is, and why (unfortunately) almost any investment management system can be considered an IBOR nowadays
* Each of the 3 types of Investment Book Of Record (generation 1-3), how you can tell them apart and the pros/cons with each
* The use cases of IBORs, from Front Office decision-making investment operations (reconciliation for example)
* How an IBOR generation 3 works and why it doesn’t require more maintenance than a flush & fill system
* IBOR vs ABOR (Accounting Book Of Record) and other Books Of Record, including PBOR and CBOR
* And finally, how an IBOR platform can fit (or not) into your operating model
https://lnkd.in/djepeUGu
And please do me a tiny favour: subscribe on youtube. I've got 4 subscribers (who knows how that happened) so your subscribe will make a difference :-)
PS. No, I'm >not< aiming for a career as a youtuber, thankfully...
BACKGROUND
Competitors are trying to box us as “not cross asset”. We know at least two providers that are actively telling consultants and investment managers that Limina is an “equity system”.
Well, equities represent less than a third of the assets on the platform (see image below). And the first asset ever on the platform was a derivative (10 years ago).
We support fixed-income, alternatives, funds, OTC, etc. However, our competitors are strong and loud voices in the industry. So what they say can become the perceived truth.
WHY WE’RE NOT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
Those of you who follow Limina know that we’re all for transparency. We publish pricing online, detailed product capabilities, etc.
And a lot of content isn't about us or our product - we write guides, share insightful data, and much more. But, we’ve yet to publish an exact list of which asset classes we support.
I prefer that you learn the truth from us rather than receive incorrect information from a 3rd party. So why don’t we just post the asset-class list on our website?
Well, in all honesty, it's because we have 2 gaps (specific instrument types) that I’m a bit embarrassed about. We’re working on both right now and will publish the list once in production.
Want to know the 2 gaps?
If you guess which the 2 gaps are, I’ll tell you.
Put your guess in the comments below and I’ll DM you which the 2 are
(and if you’re a competitor, you'll have to show me your list first, hehe 😆)
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