Ken Price, CEO, Avox

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

Networking with other data management professionals from the continent. FIMA is the largest dedicated reference data event in the world making it the most effective idea sharing forum.

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

Yes. The evidence comes in the form of budget allocations. In one case, a major investment bank has reviewed all projects for cost cutting except for those relating to reference data. Those projects were considered too important to cut. In another case, the senior data manager at one of our clients presented his budget for approval by his boss. Instead of the typical “cut it back” response, he was told even more funds would be made available for 2008 reference data projects if he could identify additional areas for improvement.

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

Not all firms are as enlightened as the two mentioned above. The answer is therefore:

1) Senior level support
2) Senior level support
3) Senior level support

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

Reference data professionals need to think of themselves as “business enablement experts”. They need to present business cases that are aligned with their firm’s business goals to make it easier for senior management to understand the relationship between excellent reference data and excellent commercial performance.

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

We need to better align our services, technology and content with business requirements. We also need to have a greater willingness to collaborate with each other to develop data standards.

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

Support an open standard for business entity identification.