Sapient Global Markets has released Synapse, a hosted platform designed to help business and technology users manage data requirements and metadata, accelerate project delivery, and increase accountability.
The platform brings together siloed metadata to create a more efficient way for firms to track, view and analyse data usage and understand how user actions affect other systems and processes. It also includes visual web-based tools to support transparency across people, processes and datasets.
To support data this, Sapient Synapse includes a number of data management disciplines including: information mapping to connect multiple datasets together through an intuitive user interface; data requirements that allow multiple requirements to be managed simultaneously; transparency and lineage to track, view and analyse how data is used; metadata to manage the meaning of data; impact assessment to understand the impact of user actions on processes and systems; and data mapping to map data across sources using visual tools.
The company was asked by two Tier 1 asset management clients to build the platform to resolve issues experienced during IT change management programmes, particularly data requirements such as mapping, lineage, data dictionaries, standards and policies that can take up 35% to 80% of the effort involved.
Gavin Kaimowitz, head of Sapient Global Markets’ data practice, explains: “As we worked with clients, we noticed that many have pockets of data requirements and analysis tools that are used by different parts of the organisation. Most are using ad hoc tools, such as Excel, and vendor tools tend to be built either for business or technology users. There is no single platform to connect the tools, so managing data requirements can be a problem. Sapient Synapse solves the problem by connecting all the tools and enabling users across the organisation to view and govern data, content, processes and metadata.”
Kaimowitz adds that feed back on the platform from the initial users is positive, particularly about the ability to foster greater collaboration between internal teams.
Going forward, Sapient plans to extend Synapse through a partnership programme that firms can use to add accelerators to the platform as well as functionality to meet specific needs. An early partner provides content correlation that allows unstructured data to be loaded into Synapse and correlated with data requirements and metadata being managed.
The platform also offers the ability to integrate the taxonomy of regulations to accelerate regulatory projects. The first regulations supported are the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) and the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB), with others coming soon most likely to include Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s BCBS 239.
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