2022 investment management outlook: Positioning for a greater impact
In 2021, the investment management industry fared well despite the pandemic-driven market volatility. While the overall outlook looks promising as we head into 2022, uncertainty around potential COVID-19 variants remains. This, along with a host of other factors, will likely continue to test investment management leaders as they strategize for the future and come up with credible tactical steps to deliver on their mission statements. Success in 2022 will likely be driven by investment management firms’ ability to create a virtuous cycle of their leadership’s vision, strong talent models, operational improvements, alignment with stakeholder expectations, employee resilience, and strengthening culture.
Here are some of the key findings from Deloitte’s 2022 investment management outlook:
Progress toward quantifiable and transparent business metrics can help firms achieve a higher bottom line, financially and socially
Respondents that made a lot of progress quantifying the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives were more likely to indicate that employee engagement and productivity have become much stronger since the start of 2021 than those who did not make a lot of progress quantifying the impact of DEI.
There’s a need to bring in agility into talent management
The return to the workplace strategy remains under development at many firms. As firms adapt to a reimagined work environment, several talent centric success initiatives may help such as: redefining the communication strategy; quantifiably addressing the firm’s vision and purpose; upskilling existing talent to meet changing requirements; building staff resilience; putting mergers and acquisitions, and outsourcing strategies to good effect.
Digital transformation investments are paying off
An overwhelming majority (85%) of our respondents that use artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions in the pre-investment phase either strongly agreed or agreed that AI helped them generate alpha. Nearly three-fourths of our survey respondents said that they would increase their budget for alpha-generating technologies such as AI, including NLP/G, and alternative data over the next 12–18 months. That said, there’s a combination of factors that helps generate alpha; survey results indicate that there is a strong correlation between the ability to generate alpha and better employee engagement and productivity, employee well-being, and agility in execution.