Four new websites delivered within eight weeks and the foundations laid for a strategic brief that will see Kurtosys enhance Ashburton’s entire client communications platform
Ashburton is an active investment manager, delivering products to intermediaries, institutional investors and private clients. Ashburton is a member of the FirstRand Group, one of South Africa’s largest financial providers.
Location:
Headquarters in Jersey, offices in South Africa and London.
Customers:
Over 6,000 clients in 60 countries.
Assets:
c.£1 billion of assets under management
Kurtosys solutions used:
Results:
- Delivered 4 new websites in just 8 weeks.
- Used Kurtosys EDM to allow common data to be shared across all business solutions.
- Improved business efficiency through single source publishing to a variety of channels.
- Set new standards of client communication, enabling greater customer engagement.
- Laid the foundations for future expansion into mobile platforms and secure portals.
Key Success Factors:
- Using Kurtosys Web to multi-purpose data through multiple channels including web, e-mail and mobile.
- Competitive project expenditure facilitated by Kurtosys’ content production teams in India.
- UK based design and project management support that offered substantial experience of the asset management industry.
- The ability to separate business function from data management.
"The roll out of our new web content management solution is the first in a number of initiatives we will be undertaking going forward to improve our client communications throughout the group. We are delighted to have found a strategic partner in Kurtosys who will provide us with the tools and expertise to achieve this."
Peter Bourne, Managing Director at Ashburton
Ashburton (Jersey) Limited is an active investment manager which runs a variety of multi-asset, equity, money market and fixed income funds, managing assets in excess of £1 billion. Belonging to parent company, FirstRand Group, brings access to the distribution and infrastructure expertise of one of South Africa’s strongest financial providers who manage assets of around R 1 trillion (£90 billion) and the opportunity to participate in the group’s ambitious growth plans which include aggressive African expansion.
Ashburton, who already sees more than 50% of its business coming from Africa, will benefit from these plans but, along with FirstRand, are also highly focused on developing the British market to diversify their investor base and reduce exposure to volatility in the Rand.
Having identified client communication as a key tool with which to differentiate its offering, Ashburton approached Kurtosys and, following a comprehensive analysis of potential providers, embarked on a strategic relationship which will eventually see Kurtosys solutions enhancing every aspect of the client communications platform from fund reporting to mobile apps.
Situation
Having decided to attack the British market, but having been frustrated by previous efforts to raise its profile, Ashburton rightly decided to focus on client communication as a core feature of its marketing push.
They wanted a client communication platform that would let them become more engaged with their client base, share more information in new and interactive ways and leverage the strength of the entire FirstRand Group.
A continual focus on operating efficiencies and the desire to create a leaner and more agile infrastructure meant that the solution had to offer all of this enhanced functionality in a way that could increase business efficiency rather than add to the workflow burden. The ability to manage content from one central point, re-using it across multiple web, e-mail and mobile channels was vital and, as ever, a competitive tender was crucial too.
They needed a partner who could excel at tactical initiatives and quickly deliver four new websites whilst separating business function from data management, but they also wanted to begin a strategic relationship.
Ashburton are at the start of a sustained focus on client communication. Future plans include enhanced fund reporting and analytical web tools, a secure portal for customer content, data and documents and an expansion of their communications platform to include mobile apps. The fact that Kurtosys could confidently meet all of these needs, offering robust advice based on years of industry experience was key to their decision to implement Kurtosys Web.
Solution
As soon as the decision to proceed had been made, Kurtosys swung straight into the implementation phase relying on a tried and tested project management approach to deliver four new websites in just 8 weeks.
Key to meeting Ashburton’s needs within such tight timescales was Kurtosys’ strength in combining London based design and project management teams with the operational superiority of content management teams in India. As well as accelerating timelines, using Indian resources for the right tasks enabled Kurtosys to deliver the project within a highly competitive budget framework.
Kurtosys Web, an integrated solution that allows a financial organisation to take complete control of its content publishing channels, was implemented across the Ashburton platforms. This creates single source publishing, allowing content to re-used easily across multiple web sites or across different web, e-mail and mobile channels.
Whilst implementation continued on Kurtosys Web, Kurtosys Data, a data management toolkit, was deployed to enable common data to be shared across all of the platform’s business solutions, radically cutting the amount of data duplication. Client communications can only ever be as good as the data they rely on but Kurtosys’ proven client onboarding process meant that few problems arose and those that did could be quickly dealt with without impacting on overall timescales.
With four new websites now live, featuring fund performance data, video updates and knowledge centres for potential investors, thoughts are now turning to next steps. Refreshing and outsourcing factsheets and the creation of mobile platforms and e-mailing solutions are next on the horizon in what promises to be a long and successful strategic relationship between Ashburton and Kurtosys.
