Kalindra Kennedy
Director of Insurance Solutions, North America
Kalindra works closely with investment professionals to identify areas for improving their accounting and portfolio reporting and understand how Clearwater could help their organization. She specializes in helping teams solve challenges associated with system evaluations and integration, providing expert insights into the world of investment accounting, best practices, and industry updates. Kalindra often facilitates collaboration between investment accounting teams and key stakeholders, finding portfolio management solutions that apply for all teams involved in the investment accounting process. When she’s not busy helping investment teams improve their processes, Kalindra enjoys running, traveling with her husband, listening to live music, spending time with her new baby boy, and taking care of her puppy, Maddie Mae. Kalindra has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in business and finance from the University of Oregon, where she was a two-time All-American heptathlete.
Traditional investment accounting practices are inefficient and error-prone, and the industry is taking notice. In fact, a recent CFO survey found nearly 85% of the finance leaders surveyed believe modernizing their financial operations is essential to compete in global markets. Another 75% of leaders report their organization is already investing in finance modernization.
Groups investing in modern finance technology gain a huge advantage over their competition as they can more easily:
- Streamline operations
- Reduce business risk
- Drive profitable growth
Legacy models cannot compete with the ever-growing capabilities of automated tools that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to manage complex tasks. Formerly time-consuming and error-prone projects including data aggregation, reconciliation, and compliance monitoring, are now available at the push of a button.
These changes are happening fast. In fact, Deloitte predicts that by 2025, periodic finance reporting will be obsolete. Successful organizations will be using real-time data for reporting and strategic decision making, and those relying on outdated processes will be left behind.
Investors turn to SaaS
To remain competitive, groups are increasingly turning to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to manage their data. SaaS solutions, such as the Clearwater Analytics solution, has revolutionized investment accounting and set investors up to efficiently manage long-term, sustainable AUM growth across accounting data sources.
Investors use automated accounting software to:
- Reallocate resources to better align with business goals
- Consolidate all asset classes into a single dashboard
- Onboard new assets faster
- Onboard third-party asset managers more easily
- Automate compliance monitoring
- Reduce time to close books, produce financial statements, and complete audits
To thrive in the modern market, investors cannot let themselves be restricted by back-office accounting limitations. Leaders need up-to-date data available at their fingertips in a moment’s notice for board meetings and strategic decision-making.
In short, investors need to stop settling for an outdated status quo. Innovative technology will be necessary to stay competitive in coming years, and groups that stay proactive instead of reactive will establish themselves as the forerunners in the modern market.
Ensuring a worthwhile investment
When choosing new technology to improve business practices, it is important to see proof of concept to ensure the technology will deliver a worthwhile return on investment (ROI).
Hobson & Company is a US-based research firm that specializes in studying the ROI when companies switch to new software and services. When they released their findings on the award-winning Clearwater solution, the results were staggering. The report showed businesses that switched to Clearwater experienced huge returns, including:
- 60% reduction in time spent on data collection, aggregation, data quality, and data management
- 75% reduction in time spent on accounting and reporting
- 60% reduction in time spent closing month end books
- 10 basis point increase in AUM due to streamlining accounting and reporting practices
- 1% reduction in required reserve
- 10% reduction in liquidity requirements
These results came as no surprise to Clearwater’s diverse network of investment clients. After all, there is a reason Clearwater consistently receives an industry-leading net promoter score (NPS) of 60+.
Still, the Hobson & Company study demonstrated to the rest of the industry the massive impact that can be gained from a single software integration. And since Clearwater provides a team of dedicated experts during the implementation process to ensure all business needs are being met, the ROI begins to take effect as soon as the solution is switched on.
See the Clearwater Analytics on-demand webinar to hear a panel of industry experts discuss best practices for a finance transformation and to learn more about how Clearwater can help you meet your investment accounting goals.
Better yet, see the Clearwater solution for yourself. Schedule a tailored demo with one of our experts today.