At IMSS we are so fortunate to work with amazing clients. We had a chance to chat with Rich Davila, Senior Portfolio Strategist at ProfitScore. ProfitScore is a highly data-driven investment firm that is hyper-focused on research. They've been utilizing our Data-Centrix technology to streamline their database efforts and become more efficient. Check out what they had to say about their experience with IMSS and Data-Centrix:
Tell me a little bit about your firm: ProfitScore is a data-driven investment firm that specializes in producing alpha by managing the systematic risk (beta) in highly liquid investment instruments. To enhance our reliability and increase our chances of success, we employ multiple investment models in the management of every asset class we trade. Each model represents a unique edge we have uncovered in our research. The firm distributes its strategies through a wide array of firms licensing our indexed portfolios. We are a research team in Eagle, Idaho that has not spun out of any other firm or hedge fund, so our investments are unique and generate returns uncorrelated to most other investments.
What were the biggest internal challenges your firm faced in managing the consultant database reporting process? We concluded that the different investors we talked to use different databases as sourcing managers. Trying to update each one is a very daunting and time-consuming task. Every database has a different way of parsing data. Because of this we realized that our efforts needed to be much more efficient and that was not something we had the time or resources to do. We are, at our core, a research and development firm; anything that takes time away from our core of research, we look to outsource.
What ultimately drove your decision to outsource this function? Just like we specialize in investment research, Data-Centrix specializes in databases, and so we look to their expertise to make sure that we don’t miss an opportunity to be inefficient. We were utilizing internal manpower to update databases which would have been better utilized in other ways. From a cost and efficiency perspective it did not make sense to keep trying to do it ourselves.
How many external firms did you speak with regarding outsourcing? We met Trisha at a conference, and she received such high praise from others we talked to that we never talked to other firms. To us, the value of having praise from people we trusted was all we needed. After working with IMSS for a short period of time, it was evident that we had a partner, not just a service provider.
What were the most critical factors for you when hiring IMSS, and what do you feel has been the added value of working with them? The value was that the database reporting portion of our business did not encumber our business functions. Having a very knowledgeable and skilled firm that took care of it for us without worry was of very high value to us.
What impact, if any, has working with IMSS had on your business/firm? Working with IMSS has allowed us to focus on what we do best and what is most critical to our business and that is research. It was a heavy load that was lifted off of our plates. IMSS is truly a wonderful group. I have great respect for all I have dealt with and can’t recommend them enough. Of all the service providers we have worked with in this business and there are many, I can honestly say that IMSS is the most reliable and trusted. I have also come to be close friends with their people and believe any firm would benefit from working with them. I felt like IMSS went out of their way to take as much off of our hands as possible - going above and beyond what they probably had to do.
Do you have any advice helpful to firms who are exploring outsourcing this function as well? It is important that you have a partner that becomes very familiar with your investment thesis. IMSS built a database of our investment information so that they could populate the different reporting platforms and worked one-on-one with us to build and maintain this information.