Investigating Investment Technology: Uncover the Right Solution

Over the years, investment firms have increasingly turned to technology to improve their operations. And the technologies many asset managers think of first are the OMS and the EMS. The Order Management System (OMS) was originally developed to track orders over the phone. In time, OMSs evolved to allow firms to automate and streamline the order-routing process. The Execution Management System (EMS) was created to support sell-side brokers and day traders in the emerging electronic marketplace. This technology gained traction among buy-side firms once it began offering global, multi-asset class platforms.

Today, the needs of investment firms have evolved to create demand for a new type of technology—one that brings the best of the OMS and the best of the EMS into one seamless solution from a single provider. This unified OEMS—one that shares a single, centralized source of truth—is critical to the front office and downstream. Today’s next-generation OEMSs are helping firms keep pace with new business demands, including:

• The expansion of electronification beyond equities is prompting firms looking to increase efficiency and decrease risk to leverage solutions that provide a consistent, straight-through processing workflow regardless of the asset class.   
• Maintaining changing compliance requirements and investor mandates requires a single system supporting a holistic compliance solution across all asset classes and investment strategies.  
• The move to pre-trade risk and compliance demands a unified technology that offers integrated risk management capabilities across the entire trade lifecycle.
• The operational and regulatory risks associated with manual processing in complex markets like fixed income and derivatives are leading trading desks to look to technology for seamless, automated solutions to alleviate these risks.

Additionally, bringing together essential front-office functions under one vendor and one technology saves costs and streamlines operations.

When selecting a next-generation OEMS vendor, consider their competencies related to configurability, product enhancement history, and open architecture for connectivity through APIs. Choose a vendor that will serve as your technology partner and guide you through all project phases—from implementation and deployment to support of your ongoing growth.

To learn more about the characteristics of the OMS, EMS, and the next-gen OEMS, as well as how to choose a responsive technology vendor, download our "A Guide to Modern Front-Office Solutions for the Way You Trade Today" Trading Technology Buyer’s Guide.