Evolving for advantage - because yesterday's "wow" quickly becomes today's "ordinary"

Over 20% (by assets under management) of the Luxembourg alternatives and traditional AM sector shared with us their views, allowing us to capture powerful insights benefiting the ASPs as they evolve in alignment. Our goal was to focus on how ASPs’ evolving contribution can be of most value to the client base they serve, as AMs in turn adapt to and shape their industry of the future to meet the demands of their clients. In the words of Jeff Bezos “we consider our clients loyal – right up to the moment someone else offers them a better service. Clients have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s “wow!” quickly becomes today’s “ordinary”.

We had anticipated radical ideas and requests from the AMs, but what emerged was a strong emphasis on a refocus on client delight and the need for ASPs to not just be a vendor, but a partner whom AM can confidently entrust with their brand. AMs insisted that investing time to fully understand client pain points and ambitions, and relentlessly pursuing the culture of being a strategic partner, is a crucial differentiator and enabler to develop “intelligent” services built upon client intimacy, rather than mechanical checklists dogmatically driven by service level agreements.

Other themes which emerged included support for industry wide collaboration to solve issues such as talent and capacity, how to turn data into a valuable asset, serving AMs’ “clients” as if they were “your own” and the harsh consequences of poor service and quality being more important than price. AMs retain a voracious appetite to outsource and they encourage ASPs to invest in and expand their service bundle, as well as to disrupt and transform (perhaps through partnerships with FinTechs) rather than simply evolving their legacy platforms.

There is no doubt that the Luxembourg eco-system of AMs and ASPs has been a rock-solid foundation of the success of Luxembourg as a fund domicile. ASPs have evolved, and new ones have emerged with pace and opportunism to close certain product gaps. The insights we have gathered cover just as much (i) experiences with ASPs across multiple domiciles than (ii) comments specific to Luxembourg, resulting amongst others from the unique leadership position Luxembourg has achieved in certain areas, such as private assets. Industry leaders have now provided us with valuable guidance on the path forward, allowing ASPs to define their strategic priorities and to chart a course for continued success and advancement.

What better way to learn, evolve, adapt, and pursue the “wow!” than by hearing it directly from leaders of the ASPs’ client base – Asset Managers.

We encourage you to read the full report, confident it will provide valuable insights on how ASPs can differentiate to compete and align propositions more closely with the needs of clients.