A recent FTfm article reminds me of how the shift of power between funds and investors has turned the reporting function into an ice cream shop – any flavour, any size, whenever the customer wants.

But what if your customers like their toppings instead of yours?

I’m talking about the client’s own data. Many investors want to add their own data into reporting and make it even more value-add for their business needs. As much as some might think 31 flavours of data is plenty, funds need to start making the customer’s own data work harder for the customer.

Investors have unprecedented say over the frequency, granularity and scope of reporting. They’ve asked for more and funds have delivered. So it’s only natural that they ask for even more.

Investors often have their own sets of data, used for their own reporting purposes. The less time they have to spend reconciling fund data with their own data or formatting data in the way their bosses want it, the happier they’ll be. A happy client equals stability.

This is also true for retail investors. There is one fund supermarket which has a widget that enables customers to input their own data for reports. This is on top of existing reporting capabilities that produce data in the style, format, branding and security the investor needs. Their clients are happy to pay extra (yes, extra) for this.

If you think just upping the frequency of reports is enough for investors, think again. Would you settle for plain vanilla if you could make your own sundae?