Staying on top of capital markets technology trends — those defining 2022 and into the future — is no longer optional. High-paced deal activity remained consistent throughout 2021, and experts predict no slowdown during the remainder of 2022: According to Deloitte’s 2022 Future of M&A Trends Survey, 92% of respondents expected deal volume to increase or stay the same during the coming 12 months. The rise in deal volume has been met with an increasingly widespread and remote workforce. And, as our work-from-anywhere future becomes the norm, so has companies’ investment in computer software and technology.
Increased reliance on technology for day-to-day deal, relationship, and pipeline management has also put a premium on the value of transparency. At all stages of the dealmaking process — especially the origination stage — candid conversations encourage investor engagement. With more deals to source in less time, there’s simply no room for vague interactions that merely scratch the surface.
As a result of increased deal volume, adoption of remote work, and the emphasis on building transparent relationships within the financial services industry, three capital markets technology trends have risen to the forefront:
- Technology must be a part of your firm’s DNA
- Data equals power
- Relationship automation
Learn more about how these capital markets technology trends and understand why capital markets digital transformation will be crucial to remaining competitive in the years ahead.
Capital markets technology trend #1: Technology must be a part of your firm’s DNA
Software and purpose-built technology has merged into every walk of life, growing from an investment standpoint and fundamentally changing the way we work together. Technology is the single most important driver in successfully competing for deals today, giving professionals the ability to move quickly, stay organized, and achieve sustainable influence. Partner-driven capital markets firms have multifaceted needs and, as a result, goals and workstreams that can’t be properly tracked and acted upon in messy, disconnected spreadsheets.
No matter the size of your firm or its investment strategy, you need software configured to align and accelerate your workflows, transactions, processes, relationships, and data. Simply put, technology is the fuel behind every firm’s engine. If you aren’t investing in technology, you aren’t empowering the cumulative intellectual capital of your people and processes.
Technology fundamentally enables every facet of dealmaking — from business development to fundraising and investor relations to checking for conflicts of interest in a deal. When the work on these strategic dealmaking initiatives happens on the road, it’s imperative to maintain constant visibility into fast-moving deal processes. Your deal, relationship, and fund intelligence should be available at a moment’s notice, even when offline. Once a competitive advantage, using technology to bolster the unique ways your firm works has become table stakes.
Capital markets technology trend #2: Data equals power
Using your technology to derive data to yield actionable insights on a daily basis is certainly not a new trend, but activating its use to earn digital trust is essential to gaining an edge in today’s market. No matter your organizational size, structure, or market, deploying dedicated data management and third-party integration solutions helps dealmakers focus their efforts and deliver results.
“The big fundamental post-pandemic shift to real-time data is great. Dealmakers are comfortable, still getting the work done, and can operate functionally anywhere in the world. I don’t think the [fast] pace is going to change, so in order to compete, firms have to have insights in real-time to make decisions.”
Dealmaker Pulse Survey Report, Autumn 2021
The importance of purposeful data management solutions
Using purposeful data management solutions that let your team merge entries, audit data, bulk import, and export information, and execute other mission-critical tasks, centers dealmakers’ day-to-day goals. A CRM like DealCloud — built by industry professionals to power capital markets digital transformation — provides specific tools and features available to support your data management efforts.
Intapp DealCloud includes key data management features that empower dealmakers’ decision journey today.
- Deduplication and entry merging: The Merge Entries tool helps maintain data integrity across the firm. Use this tool to combine metadata and references from multiple entries to single entry, eliminating duplicate records for a single entry or at scale.
- Data cleanliness reports: These dashboards break down various important pieces of missing or incomplete data in a given list, profile, report, widget, or other area of your firm’s CRM.
- Data centralization: DealCloud makes it easy for capital markets professionals to house their contacts, activities, and any other critical data in one place. With these advantages, dealmakers can better manage relationships, execute on transactions, and expand their portfolios.
- Bulk edit: In the capital markets, deals move fast. Sporting intuitive spreadsheet-like functionality, DealCloud users can add, delete, filter, reorder, swap, view, hide columns, and add data quickly — all of which is immediately applied across a user’s or firm’s DealCloud instance.
- Data import and export: DealCloud’s implementation process imports only the most valuable data into your CRM. From there, your firm can configure rules and permissions that enable greater data cleanliness and reduce the risk of data loss, and define who can import and export data, and at what frequency.
- Revert changes: Mistakes happen. That’s why the DealCloud platform lets certain users leverage deletion logs. Leaders can see when records were deleted, who made the deletion, the deleted data’s source, the affected list, and the number of deleted entities. When needed, users can reverse deleted records.
Access to third-party data integrations
Capital markets professionals need immediate access to industry contact data, private and public company data, deal updates, news, and data sources. The DataCortex solution ensures a single source of truth, allowing you to search and query third-party data sets directly within the DealCloud platform. DealCloud partners with leading capital markets data providers.
- FactSet: Through market changes and technological progress, FactSet has offered the deep expertise and expansive company data firms need to make smarter investment decisions. All FactSet datasets are backed by best-in-class symbology and data concordance to ensure integrity. FactSet has the expansive research capabilities and infrastructure to ensure that data is both accurate and easily accessible, making it a great DataCortex partner.
- Pitchbook: Intapp clients who choose to integrate their PitchBook subscription into the DealCloud platform enjoy access to verified public and private capital markets data, which — when distributed and intelligently connected throughout DealCloud — can augment and support existing proprietary data to fuel stronger market coverage.
- Preqin: Preqin’s dedicated global research teams forge and maintain direct relationships with private markets firms and investors to guarantee data delivered is accurate, timely, and exclusive to Preqin. By leveraging this data through DataCortex, dealmakers and fundraisers gain relevant and actionable insights into investment plans and past investment activity, giving their firms a competitive edge. Most importantly, this integration lets firms populate their DealCloud CRM with Preqin data, creating a centralized location for all of the firm’s capital markets data.
Striking the perfect balance of proprietary and third-party data gives dealmakers access to increased market coverage, improved pipeline visibility, enhanced reporting, and other competitive advantages, spurring greater success for your firm.
Capital markets technology trend #3: Relationship automation
As relationship structures become increasingly complex — and with most work today taking place in the digital space — it’s critical to invest in the right tools to foster a culture of transparency. Dealmakers need to consistently nurture relationships, enhance client communication, and support intentional collaboration. Despite dealmakers agreeing on the value of their professional relationships, oftentimes they fail to fully leverage them. Without the help of technology to support the relationship management process, firm leaders and dealmakers alike struggle to keep track of who knows whom, how well they’re acquainted, how these relationships are changing, or how to strengthen them.
Fuel your relationships with technology
Relationship Intelligence combines firms’ high-quality contact and relationship data with the DealCloud platform’s client and engagement lifecycle data. With this layer of insights, firms can outperform their peers and gain a competitive advantage, resulting in data-driven business development and stronger collaboration. Relationship Intelligence includes key features that support capital markets digital transformation.
- Bespoke relationship tiering: Build a relationship-tiering structure that fits your firm’s unique needs and organizational structure
- Flexible relationship ownership: Enforce accountability and reward task and relationship ownership with DealCloud’s flexible tagging capabilities; ensure proper coverage of deals, people, and opportunities through DealCloud’s intelligent tagging layer
- Historical accessible view of communication: Track banker, deal source, LP, and other stakeholder communication directly within the DealCloud platform; access third-party integration tools, such as DealCloud’s Microsoft Outlook Add-In, to help track conversations and meetings directly from your inbox
- One-click tear sheet downloads: Create tear sheets using preformatted report templates that help anyone at your firm gather relationship history from the web or DealCloud mobile app with the click of a button
- Enhanced coverage models: Use relationship intelligence to streamline and more effectively manage sourcing channels whether you’re using DealCloud on the buy or sell side; with this technology, it’s easy to determine which channels bear the most fruit and which need attention or nurturing
Are you ready to succeed?
The capital markets digital transformation, driven by these prominent technology trends, is paving the way for a more productive, transparent, and streamlined future for dealmakers. The ability to track and adapt to these changes starts with ensuring your firm uses purpose-built technology to successfully tackle multilayered goals and workstreams.
Dealmakers must also lead with data-driven insights in every conversation, transaction, or meeting, making data management the cornerstone of each deal decision. Every individual involved with a deal needs to consistently nurture relationships, enhance communication, and foster collaboration. With most work happening on the move today, insights into key relationships should be readily available for all. To stay ahead as the fast-paced deal landscape continuously evolves, empower yourself and your firm with the tools you need to enhance productivity and gain a competitive edge for the future of dealmaking.
Ready to implement a purpose-built capital markets CRM that also serves as a data management solution and relationship intelligence tool? Schedule a demo of Intapp DealCloud today.