Asia Awards 2023: Best performance measurement and attribution product—SS&C Technologies

Product: Sylvan

Overview

Sylvan is an integrated book of record for performance measurement, attribution and composite management that helps firms analyze and understand performance in an operationally efficient way featuring: 

  • Timely performance analysis and delivery across all asset classes
  • Data management functionality ensuring quality results through its integrated validation process
  • Flexible performance and attribution calculations 
  • Performance-based risk management
  • Flexible reporting with customizable reports and user-definable dashboards
  • Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) compliance and verification
“Sylvan’s flexibility enabled us to deploy the platform tailored to our requirements. Sylvan will also streamline and elevate our performance processes through its best-of-breed capabilities. During our evaluation process, SS&C demonstrated both Sylvan’s strength and the expertise of their team. We are confident they are the right partner to help us expand and enhance our activities, including GIPS compliance.”
Jannie du Randt, operations executive, Momentum Investments

The solution

  • Acts as a book of record by storing calculated results while preserving changes 
  • Allows performance teams to collaborate toward quality results with exception-based workflow management 
  • Defines calculation methodologies such as time-weighted rate of return, money-weighted rate of return, gross/net and after-tax 
  • Allows calculations to be rolled up to definable hierarchical structures from both security and portfolio levels 
  • Supports GIPS compliance with rules-based membership, disclosure management and reporting of GIPS-compliant presentations

Secret sauce

  • Deployment options: Sylvan is offered as a deployed install, hosted, or outsourced. 
  • User-definable attribution: Definable attribution calculations are available to meet specific business requirements. Clients have moved their bespoke spreadsheet-based calculations into Sylvan. 
  • Self-service reporting: Users can create their own reports and visualization dashboards, including click- and drill-through navigation. 
  • Comprehensiveness: Sylvan is a single, integrated solution covering all asset classes and encompassing performance, attribution, risk, and GIPS compliance. 

Recent milestones

Functional: 

  • Updated benchmark calculations to allow for more customizability 
  • Extended fund-of-funds functionality to adjust for fund performance timing differences and support for drill through on index 
  • Enhanced private equity reporting 
  • Added more features to existing Excel add-in that facilitates pulling data into Excel from Sylvan for customizable analysis and reporting 

Architectural: 

  • Completed migration of all functions to web client using Angular.js Website and ASP.NET Web API

Future objectives

Functional:

  • Enhancements to reporting dashboards, validation process, and risk analytics 
  • Customizable reporting data mart 
  • Enhanced API solution to allow Sylvan real-time integration with both upstream and downstream applications 

Architectural: 

  • Docker containerization
  • RabbitMQ message bus
“Winning the award for best performance measurement and attribution product validates Sylvan’s continued market leadership in this space. SS&C invests heavily in Sylvan research and development to ensure that our solution meets and exceeds the needs of the marketplace. Its capabilities and flexibility make processes more efficient, which in turn frees up performance teams to enhance their value-add analysis.” 
Christy Bremner, senior vice president and general manager, SS&C Technologies

Why they won

SS&C Technologies’ second win in this year’s WatersTechnoology Asia Awards is in the best performance measurement and attribution category and comes courtesy of its outstanding Sylvan platform. Sylvan, which arrived at SS&C Technologies as part of its 2005 acquisition of FMC, is so much more than a humble performance engine: It is a multi-asset class performance, attribution, risk and GIPS platform, designed to allow users to customize their own attribution calculations according to their specific needs.  

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