Planning for the Unpredictable: Lessons From Brexit

British politics has made even casual observers pull up a chair, grab some popcorn, and get cozy to see what happens next. World markets have been tumultuous and investment teams are working overtime to understand their exposures and financial positions. Now that the shock of the decision has passed, investors are planning for what comes next as the effects of Brexit ripples across global markets.

So, what does come next? Planning is the cornerstone to any business, but there is no way to predict the future. Even the best plans must be revisited as the uncertainty of the future becomes the reality of today. It’s important to control what you can control, and be prepared for what’s uncontrollable. For investment accounting professionals, perhaps the most important part of planning is trusted and accurate data. Accurate data ensures you are in a position to make confident decisions in these uncertain times, and do so faster than your competitors.

What Does Brexit Mean for Investment and Finance Teams?

The world will be analyzing the full impact of Brexit for decades to come. But what does it mean now, in your day-to-day work life? In conversations with investment accounting professionals, we’ve heard that Brexit has caused a surge in requests from management, more last minute meetings requiring vast amounts of data compiled quickly, and reassessments of existing plans several times over. The list of workflow disruptions goes on and on. Many investment teams have become experts in Excel after days of manually producing data, and have memorized their custodian and asset managers’ phone numbers from daily calls.

Good investment decisions rely on good data. Pure and simple. Investment teams need to produce good data quickly—and not wait for data to be formatted, validated, or organized by an outside party. The best way to ensure good data is to put systems in place that immediately provide accurate, available, formatted, and validated data at your fingertips.

At Clearwater, Brexit reminds us of when the collapse of Lehman Brothers had investment teams scrambling to understand their true exposures. While Lehman was an exposure to an institution; Brexit is an unprecedented geographic and business planning exposure. And just like in 2008, no one knows what is going to happen next in the markets. Brexit is just one of many economic factors outside of anyone’s control. What we do know is there will always be events that require investment professionals to make decisions based on investment portfolio data.

Do you have access to your financial position and investment exposures within minutes, without sending the investment and finance teams into a panic? For Clearwater users, the answer is yes. For others, Brexit is another reminder that it’s time to make accurate, timely, validated data a reality for their business.