IME RMS - Research Management Solution
What is the IME RMS?
The IME RMS (Research Management Solution) is a cloud-based proprietary technology that is used to document the insights of our central research team and make these insights directly accessible to end investors.
The IME RMS was created out of a desire to solve one of the biggest issues in the field of investments – the weak flow down of investment insights.
THE CHALLENGE
THE WEAK FLOW DOWN OF INVESTMENT INSIGHT
The flow down of insights in the investments industry has a number of issues – which leads to investors often having to make investment decisions with what may be incomplete or even incorrect information.
Let us illustrate:
Communication typically flows like this
- AMC Fund managers (have a deep understanding of investments, the funds they manage and underlying market trends)
- Wealth management product teams (The fund selection team, responsible for selecting products)
- Relationship Managers (Client facing and high interactivity with investors)
- Clients / Investor (Rely on RMs for investment advice)
At each step, there is a significant loss of insight / lapse in communication due to many reasons – biased communication, focus on sales targets versus the suitability of the recommended investment, competency, conflict of interests, relationship manager dependence or just Chinese whispers!
The brunt of this gap in communication is borne by the investor – resulting in unsuitable investments or inferior portfolio construction.
THE SOLUTION
THE IME RMS
We have taken substantial time and effort to address this complexity and come up with certain tools to simplify and fool proof how we document and share data and insight. All of this innovation resulted in us creating our very own Research Management Solution (RMS).
HOW THE RMS WORKS
The central research team, headed by the founder, does a rigorous analysis on the various factors that goes into analysing investment options (including qualitative assessments of the fund house, it’s team and strategy combined with quantitative analysis of past performance).
The next step is simplifying the vast amounts of technical information & insights. We organise the investment options, adding a five star rating system, along with easy-to-understand colour-coded highlights of the core insights of our central research team.
These findings are all stored in our sophisticated cloud-based RMS, which allows it to be directly accessible to all members of the IME team and easily shareable with the investor.
WHY THIS WORKS
- The team that is analysing the data is very close to the markets and is headed by our Fund manager / founder, resulting in a superior quality of insights
- The central research team is not attached to any sales incentives, hence it allows our investment specialists to only focus on selecting the best investments, free of any conflicts.
- By centralising the communication of research, we have a very limited impact of RM churn; the communication is no longer dependent on one person.
- Every single stakeholder at IME Capital is reading the exact same views on an investment option: there is no selective communication that takes place
- Communication is structured as advice (a holistic view of investment options, comprising both the pros and the cons) as compared to marketing (focus on sales)
HOW THE IME RMS REINFORCES ETHICS ACROSS THE ORGANISATION
To provide investors with a holistic perspective on investment opportunities, we include the positives and negatives on each of the funds that we review and rate. When we choose to include the negative aspects of what might be our top-rated funds, we know they become difficult to sell. This can impact our shorter-term sales and profitability. But by giving investors a more honest picture, what we gain is trust, which helps us in the long term!