Technology is an area of interest for many family offices when it comes to investing. However, few have integrated technology systems for their own operations.
Throughout the past year, published reports have indicated that just 10% of family offices use specific technology for operational optimisation, with most still relying on Excel for their reporting.
Family offices tend to be outstanding when it comes to investing in technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain or green tech. But they are far behind the curve when it comes to integrating emerging technology into their operations.
With smaller teams and less infrastructure, adopting new technologies may be more challenging for family offices than large consultancy firms or financial institutions.
For family offices to survive in today’s current climate, we need to embrace operational technology to enhance efficiency through automation and have greater process transparency. With so much information available at the touch of button, why are we still relying on Excel? We have to embrace the modern age and use the technology we ourselves invest in to improve our ways of working and streamline.
As a single family office that now has three generations, we have seen exactly these challenges over the last decade.
Reviewing our own family office’s operational costs and reporting structures, we found that hiring more staff did not necessarily improve productivity. Human error in reporting increased and cashflow suffered. Concluding from this review, we needed an advanced system to streamline our processes and automate certain operations.
We sought a flexible system that was able to encompass all of our assets and assist with our investment operations. We wanted to find a system that worked for us and which fitted with the way we operated.
After spending more than 12 months searching for a solution, we decided to take on the challenge of creating our own internal system, assisted by world leading experts. We created Serreus Global Technology, an advanced platform to manage our operations and assets in one place. It is a system designed by a family office for family offices with institutional grade performance.
Our platform leverages automated AI and machine learning to offer a dynamic asset management system, delivering real-time financial insights on our whole asset portfolio.
Serreus simplifies asset oversight, offering comprehensive automated analysis of all assets, including illiquid and liquid assets as well as operating cashflow positions and banking data accessed through direct real time API links. It provides seamlessly integrated data from existing financial applications to generate meaningful KPIs for reporting.
Serreus encompasses enhanced accuracy, enables scalability, saves time and eradicates human error. Users benefit from key features such as daily operating controls, working capital management, cashflow analysis, forecasting, management reporting, ad-hoc analytics, providing a holistic view of organisational performance.
Serreus furnishes pertinent KPIs with regional and/or global benchmarking, coupled with forecasting capabilities, streamlining decision making processes.
It provides clear and concise UBO features, encompassing trust structures and dividends.
Our robust risk management tool provides a configurable alert system covering individual metrics to complex combinations. Users are promptly notified when predefined thresholds are met. Powered by our analytical pipeline, Serreus accommodates a wide range of useful metrics and seamlessly integrates any custom libraries or calculations according to the user’s needs.
The flexible portfolio setup of multi-asset classes is an important foundation for the system. Serreus automatically retrieves crucial documents from fund sources and portals, seamlessly connecting them to corresponding funds or updating valuation of illiquid assets thus allowing senior managers to focus on alpha.
Security stands as a top priority on our platform, evidenced by numerous scheduled penetration tests. The system surpasses standard security measures used by the US military, ensuring unparalleled protection.
With the help of Serreus, our end of year report found that we have trebled our productivity, reduced our cost by one-third, increased our reporting accuracy to 99.9 per cent and improved our cashflow by 60 per cent. These are real measurable improvements throughout the organisation.
To learn more about our journey and how Serreus was created to help family offices, contact our experts and take advantage of our knowledge.
