Front-office technology spending is in something of a steady
state-of growth-as system-integration and electronic-trading
requirements push both buy- and sell-side firms to increase
processing speeds, system capacity and productivity and improve the
level of services they deliver to clients.
Electronification of trading and the transformative influences
of hedge funds and alternative investment strategies ranked first
and second on TowerGroup analyst Dushyant Shahrawat's list of the
top ten brokerage industry business drivers for 2007. But there's
nothing new about these well-established trends, and they exist
within a decisionmaking framework that isn't changing much year to
year. Shahrawat, research area director of the Needham, Mass. firm,
listed the overriding technology priorities as "aligning
information technology with new growth opportunities, containing
costs, bolstering electronic trading efforts and moving toward
service-oriented architecture." |
