Chris Bannocks, Reuters global head of product and capability management

1 What do you believe is the main value of the FIMA events to the data management community?

FIMA is a great opportunity to share research, product updates, product strategy, thought leadership and to network and understand broad industry sentiment.

2 Do you think the industry has made progress in its data management goals since FIMA 2006 in London? In what areas?

Some progress has been made. A year is not a long time in this industry however, and the challenges are huge, therefore incremental improvement is key. The realisation that distribution is a key part of the data management challenge has been a key progress point. Progress on standards has been made but as usual that pace is slow, as is adoption, but things are improving.

3 What are the three biggest inhibitors to further success in data management in your view?

The rate of change is extremely high in the capital markets. The biggest inhibitor is not keeping pace with this change, and lacking innovation to ensure that pace can be sustained.

4 How do you think the industry should seek to overcome them?

Work on standards is extremely important, but the industry shouldn’t make this its only focus. In order to keep pace with change we need to get closer and closer to its source, and the role of the CDO is critical in unifying strategy and identifying innovative ways to keep pace with market change. The EDM Council has an important role to play in pulling together key market participants and creating focus on innovation to standardise and cope with the changing requirements of this market. Working as an industry in a unified and innovative way will help to ensure consensus and drive through change. However this issue has to have the attention of the board as a critical strategic competitive advantage.

5 In what ways could the providers of data and data management technology better support financial institutions in their data management goals?

Providers must continue to innovate and provide focused solutions that solve specific ‘points of pain’. High quality data must also be fully integrated within those solutions.

6 What one thing could the industry do better to encourage a step-change in progress towards improved data management?

The industry must focus hard on innovation, in the standards space, in the software space and in the data space.