Following its establishment of an office in Singapore in October last year, data management solution vendor Eagle Investment Systems has decided to move its current Asian and EMEA managing director John Legrand from his London base out to the office in order to boost its competitive approach in the region. The US headquartered vendor subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon Asset Servicing is keen to improve its visibility in the local Asian markets and Legrand will join Singapore-based sales and support focused execs Danny Lim and William Tan, both of whom joined from Thomson Reuters last year. In lieu of Legrand’s departure, the vendor will also be expanding its on the ground presence in London.
John Lehner, president and CEO of Eagle, explains the rationale behind the move: “John’s move to the Singapore office elevates Eagle’s presence in a part of the world where our business is growing more than any other region. Relocating one of the most senior managers of the Eagle team directly addresses client requests for local senior support and provides us with the ability to assess and concentrate on existing and future client needs more effectively.”
Legrand will retain his responsibility for the EMEA region and will be kicking off a recruitment drive for the London office in order to boost its competitive approach to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as the Asian region.
The vendor already has a number of clients in the Asian region, but it is keen to grow its regional demographic aggressively over the next couple of years. Many other vendors have also adopted this strategy, as the US and European markets continue to prove challenging in the post-crisis environment. In 2008, Eagle added a couple of Asian-based firms to its client list with the signing of Nomura Asset Management in Tokyo and AMP Funds in Australia, which were the last two public Asian client wins for the vendor.
Eagle opted to base its Asian operations in Singapore because of its geographic location in the region and its business friendly environment, according to Lehner. He reckons the appetite for data management in the Asian region has increased significantly over the last few years. “Although most Asian institutions fared far better than other companies around the world during the financial crisis thanks to strong risk management processes, they continue to proactively mitigate unnecessary risk and evolve their operational infrastructures. As such, there is an enormous demand by these firms for enterprise data management solutions that provide visibility, operational efficiencies, and the ability to move quickly to be able to adjust to market changes. The days of just managing reference data have long past,” Lehner contends.
“The Asian markets are leading a technological revolution in their implementation of newer technologies by replacing them with web-based software and exploring new delivery methods such as hosting. At the same time, we are seeing an increased appetite for investment accounting and performance measurement solutions that remain current with regulatory changes, yet flexible enough to adapt to local needs,” adds Legrand.
The vendor has also been focusing on evolving its hybrid approach to the data solutions market over the last year or so and will likely be targeting Asian clients with software as a service (SaaS) or application service provider (ASP) models of deployment.
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