Adviser, Client & Investor Channels
Adviser platforms, client servicing, digital channels and onboarding.
Asset & Wealth Management
Investment Platforms & Operating Models
The platform estate sets what a manager can run, and at what cost.
Overview
The investment platform estate — order management, portfolio management, the investment book of record, compliance rules — determines which products a manager can run and what each one costs to operate. Estates accumulate overlapping systems through product launches, acquisitions and past programmes, each with its own data model, interfaces and support arrangements, and the operating model bends around them.
We run platform selection against the target operating model, rationalise overlapping systems, and deliver the change through to live operation. On institutional estates that means Aladdin, Charles River and Bloomberg AIM among the candidates, assessed vendor by vendor on fit, total cost and migration effort. Delivered work includes Calypso implemented for execution and settlement at one of Australia's largest superannuation funds.
We work with COOs and heads of investment operations at institutional asset managers and wealth businesses. Engagements run from an estate review or a single platform decision to ownership of the full implementation and migration, with the workflow and controls of investment operations rebuilt around the new estate. Adviser and client channels are covered separately, on their own page.
What we do
We map the current estate — systems, interfaces, costs and the work each one carries — then run selection against your target operating model, vendor by vendor. Aladdin, Charles River and Bloomberg AIM are assessed on fit, total cost and migration effort, alongside the option of rationalising what you already run.
The operating model is the standard every platform decision is tested against: which functions sit where, what the platform does, what people do, and how data moves between them. We design it with the business, and it stays the reference through selection, build and migration.
We plan and run the delivery through to live operation: build, integration, data migration, parallel running and cutover, with vendor, custodian and internal teams working to one plan. Delivered work includes Calypso implemented for execution and settlement at one of Australia's largest superannuation funds.
Portfolio decisions rest on the daily record of positions, cash and exposures. We establish the investment book of record as that single record, define which system owns each element, and build the reconciliations that keep it aligned with accounting and custodian views.
We design the workflow from order to settlement so each step has an owner, exceptions surface the day they occur, and checks are part of the process rather than added afterwards. The result is a trade lifecycle that runs the same way every day, at higher volumes.
Around the platform sits the operating model of the middle office: trade support, corporate actions, pricing, reconciliations. We redesign these functions to match the new estate, so the platform's capability is reflected in how the work is actually done and staffed.
What to expect
The first weeks map the current estate and operating model: the systems, what each carries, what each costs, and where the daily friction sits. That produces a decision paper with options costed against the target operating model. From there, delivery runs in stages — design, build, migration, cutover — with a senior Capmark team working alongside vendor, custodian and internal teams, and a partner accountable throughout.
01
Assess
Establish the current state, the constraints, the risks and the value at stake.
02
Define
Shape the target model and the business case with the executives who own the outcome.
03
Mobilise
Stand up the team, the plan and the governance around the outcome.
04
Implement
Design, build and test the change, with the business alongside.
05
Sustain
Cutover, hypercare and handover, so the business runs it under its own control.
The same five stages on every engagement, led by senior practitioners end to end. How we work
Insights
Related thinking.
Get in touch
Talk to a Partner about Investment Platforms & Operating Models.
Tell us what needs to change and where the pressure or risk is showing.