The pricing and valuations space is becoming ever more complex and data management teams focused on this function are being asked to do even more with fewer resources at hand, so how can they cope? The answer may lie in increasing automation and slotting this area of data management into a wider enterprise data management (EDM) strategy, according to panellists at the recent A-Team Group, GoldenSource and Interactive Data valuations event in London.

"In the short term we have been able to cope with this challenge but it is not a long term solution as staff will burn out eventually if they are faced with dealing with these huge volumes of exceptions on a regular basis"

"These fund accounting teams are being pushed to their limits"

"There is a desire to bring down costs by rationalising processes following mergers and acquisitions. The business has also changed from monthly valuations to daily, which means firms have to be more scalable; all of which adds up to increased spending"

"You need to be able to prove how you arrived at that price to auditors, regulators and clients"

"You never want to throw people at the problem because they can make mistakes and it is not a cost efficient way to operate. You need to invest in technology to allow your best people to focus on the riskiest and most important part of the business rather than being tied up with manual processing of exceptions."

"Our experience indicates that firms are only just starting to focus on putting pricing data into an EDM context"

"Focus on the areas where there is greatest benefit for risk management and client satisfaction,"

"Many firms have taken the decision to dual source or triple source valuations feeds: 31% of respondents dual source and 48% triple source this data in comparison to only 15% that receive a single feed."

"Investment in these feeds might be going to waste if 80% of it falls on the floor due to a lack of resources to process the data"