How a Tier 1 US Investment Manager Achieved 15-20% Savings Following a Major Merger

The Challenge

A leading investment management and investment services company, focused on helping clients manage their financial assets and succeed in a rapidly changing global marketplace, faced a critical inflection point. As a result of a major merger, staff changes and business requirements had shifted drastically, leaving the firm with a market data environment that no longer matched its operational reality.

• A recent merger had fundamentally changed the firm's staffing, workflows, and business requirements
• The existing market data environment was built for the pre-merger organization and no longer fit for purpose
• No clear understanding of which market data services were still needed, redundant, or missing across the newly combined entity
• Urgent need to consolidate, replace, reduce, and augment services, all with an overall objective of cost optimization
• Vendor contracts inherited from both legacy organizations with overlapping coverage and inconsistent terms

Our Approach

Oceanview Partners conducted a comprehensive assessment of user-based requirements and applied that analysis to the existing market data environment. Our engagement focused on understanding the newly merged firm's actual needs and aligning the data infrastructure accordingly:

• User Requirements Assessment: Conducted a detailed analysis of the user base across the newly merged organization, mapping individual and team-level data requirements to actual business functions and workflows
• Market Data Environment Audit: Catalogued all existing market data services across both legacy organizations, identifying overlaps, gaps, and redundancies in the combined data estate
• Content Consolidation: Consolidated the market data inventory based on the requirements analysis, determining which services to retain, replace, reduce, or augment for the merged entity
• Procurement Negotiation: Managed the market data procurement negotiation process with suppliers to right-size contracts going forward, leveraging the combined entity's scale for improved commercial terms

The Results

Within four months, Oceanview Partners helped identify all market data services within the firm and developed a Target Operating Model for modification of the data environment that was appropriate for the newly merged organization. Through the requirements-based assessment and vendor negotiation process, savings of 15-20% were achieved, while ensuring the combined firm had the right data coverage to support its evolving business needs.