Paul

Alphacution has devised a method to arrive at the most highly credible estimate for what any asset manager spends on technology, no matter their level of financial disclosure. And, the implications for that discovery are huge... Clearly, this is a bold, provocative - if not, entirely ludicrous - claim. And yet, we still make it, out here in the open, with confidence - thanks to our collection of data. Here's why: There is a persistent relationship between assets under management (AUM), technology spending, and headcount. The change in these factors is predictable along a continuum of AUM - and repeatable from period to period. With a wink and a doff of the cap to our old pal, Pythagoras, we only need to know two of these factors - AUM and headcount - in order to reliably guess the third - technology spending. (And, sometimes, we only need to know one factor to get in the range...) Here's another way to think of it: If one were to build a "context [...]

What happens when a company is smart enough, productive enough and wealthy enough to succeed in any business? One thing's for sure: the roster of incumbents and would-be competitors threatened by that kind of company becomes an extremely long list. This is a threat like none other before because never before has a type of company been able to be so disruptive in so many places simultaneously... In unprecedented fashion, the digital era has given rise to a few companies whose dominance symbolize such traits. This story is not particularly new, nor are the names of these digital darlings cause for surprise. Management consulting powerhouses, like McKinsey and Accenture, have been detailing the possible threats of Amazon or Google or Apple on the banking industry for the past three years, particularly since the launch of Apple Pay. All the major media outlets, like Bloomberg, and industry specialist reports, like American Banker, have been watching this story unfold as if they were slowly eating from an endless tub of buttery popcorn. [...]