Beacon Consulting Group

	Beacon Publications
		Oversight: Getting It Right with Your Service Provider Now is the time to redefine and transform the level of oversight of outsourced functions. The current market environment presents an ideal opportunity to redefine oversight and to simultaneously achieve two critical goals: managing operational risk and reducing costs.
		A Fresh Perspective on Today's Investment Operations in Canada Current market conditions have created unprecedented challenges for Canadian investment managers. Although there are no "silver bullets", we believe investment managers have a unique opportunity to capitalize on recent innovations in the outsourcing space in order to address cost, quality, and risk challenges.
		Due Diligence: The Key to a Successful Implementation In these times of economic uncertainty, the costly mistakes of previous implementation efforts can provide valuable lessons to firms that choose to take note. In this publication, Beacon explores the common pitfalls that occur on implementations of complex-wide, highly configurable technology and provides recommendations on how firms can prevent these issues from transpiring.
		Financial Reporting Benchmark Study The benchmark study provides investment managers and investment company service providers with a unique perspective and valuable insights on the financial reporting process. Report includes: Comparison of Outsource to In-house Workloads and Staffing Work Allocation by Task Impact of Cycle Overlap on Workload Work Allocation by Employee Level Average Hours per Fund Length of Financial Reporting Cycle Beacon's Best Practices
		Middle Office Survey Results Beacon's Middle Office Survey indicates that that the middle office is predominantly about data – capturing it, reconciling it, owning it, and making it useable and available throughout the firm to enhance decision making. Enterprise-wide access to quality, timely data is a critical component in driving operational efficiency, asset growth and investment performance.
		How to Select and Convert Fund Administrators The first publication in Beacon Consulting Group’s "Standing Out: Operational Excellence for Hedge Fund Managers" series designed to address key operational challenges faced by today’s hedge fund managers. Converting to a new hedge fund administrator is a major decision that should include a current state assessment, a detailed RFP, and due diligence process as well as comprehensive planning.
		Opportunities in the Evolving Middle Office Read Beacon's perspective on how the middle office has evolved into a critical component in the investment lifecycle. Beacon examines the opportunities to improve the middle office through in-house operating model initiatives, enhanced technology applications, and outsourcing to service providers. Beacon stresses that investment managers must understand where they are today, where they want to be in the future, and build a strategy and implementation plan around the services and technology options currently available.
		Eight in '08 In “Eight for 08”, Beacon Consulting Group selected eight industry topics and trends that asset managers and asset servicing firms will be confronting in 2008. These challenges will test asset managers and asset servicing firms in meeting their goals and objectives. They also present multi-dimensional opportunities for organizations to focus on creating a new framework to mitigate risk, improve scalability, leverage technology, and meet regulatory requirements.
		Processing Swaps: Controls, Challenges, and Considerations The rise in derivatives and alternative investments has squeezed the processing and operating capacity of many service providers. Correspondingly, processing errors can create unforeseen problems and potentially jeopardize client relationships. In "Processing Swaps", published in the Journal of Investment Compliance, Beacon Consulting experts focus specifically on the equity swap investment vehicle and provide a core understanding of swap processing and compliance requirements to investment professionals.
		Seven for '07 Seven for '07 examines 2007's challenges and trends prevailing across the investment management industry. Inside, Beacon reviews such topics as regulatory changes, outsourcing, industry consolidation, and recent tax and reporting mandates and identifies potential opportunities that can provide significant benefits to asset managers and service providers looking to stay one step ahead of prevailing industry trends.
		Hedge Fund Regulation: Trends in the Industry Hedge funds and alternative investment shops have exploded in sheer numbers and assets under management over the last 5 years. In this whitepaper, Gerry Healy of Beacon Consulting teams up with Michael Lukaj, the Director of Compliance at IFS, to examine the current regulatory environment for US hedge funds and explore recent actions from government agencies and private groups. Click here to download your free copy of Hedge Fund Regulation: Current Trends in the Industry, published in the Journal of Investment Compliance.
		Beacon Perspectives: The Financial Reporting Process: Getting It Right Preparing financial reports under strict deadlines can be a stressful and time consuming series of tasks. Firms often rely on a disparate set of spreadsheets and manual workarounds which are error prone and labor intensive. In the first issue of Beacon Perspectives, Beacon's financial reporting experts highlight key factors to a successful reporting period.
		Work Essentials - Microsoft Tools for your Job Beacon Consulting Group presents Work Essentials, selected content for the "Tools for Your Job" section of Microsoft.com. Inside, Beacon presents techniques for successful forecasting, audit preparation, profit projections, marketing financial services, and managing client relationships for use with Microsoft Office applications.