Late last month, we announced a major new release of our platform for asset and wealth managers worldwide, a release that represents significant strides for our clients and for Advent.

For our clients, the new platform provides a solution for streamlined workflows, business-intelligence reporting, multicurrency capabilities, and a common user experience across all of our products. For Advent, this release allows us to take pride in what we can offer our clients, and lets us show the world what we’ve been hard at work on over the past year.

To be more specific, this release represents the culmination of changes and improvements within Advent that were focused on making us more nimble, client-centric, easy to adopt, and global in our approach to building effective solutions. It also marks the first-ever simultaneous update to all of our asset management products, bringing together APX, Moxy, Advent Rules Manager, Advent Revenue Center, and more. It’s been exciting for us to see so many elements come together in a single release, and going forward, the platform will continue to be released this way every six months. (If you have a few minutes, I hope you’ll watch this video describing the platform in more detail.)

But specifics aside, I’d like to make the point that this release is more than a platform; it’s an approach to creating a forward-looking strategy for investing in tools and technology and for extending the long-term strategic partnership we have with our clients. Advent may have traditionally been thought of as an “accounting solution” provider, but did you realize that over the past few years, we’ve expanded our tools and capabilities for the front office? This new release can meet the needs of our clients’ executives, business owners, and decision makers. We like to think in terms of giving the user a new experience, so we introduced an all-inclusive UI, customizable dashboards for making data more accessible, and capabilities for tracking how business is performing and identifying where to make adjustments.

I’d like to wrap up by sharing something important I learned while on the road, visiting Advent clients, this past month: The feedback I heard about our progress was tremendous. Not only are our clients excited about the changes we’re implementing; they share our enthusiasm for this fast-paced evolution. What’s more, they’re genuinely engaged in the dialog about what lies ahead for us. If you haven’t done so already, I hope this release will provide the reason for you to join in that dialog today.

Anthony Sperling is Co-Head and General Manager of Advent Software’s Asset Management Group. In this role he is responsible for strategy, product marketing, sales, services, and support of Advent’s solutions for the asset management industry. He has been with Advent since 1993.

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We solve problems for a living. As a result, we are constantly seeking that elusive creative insight, that “Aha!” moment where the clouds part and the answer becomes perfectly clear. We’ve all experienced it – that magical moment where you see an answer clearly in your mind, often when you least expect it.

I attended a lecture recently by the author Jonah Lehrer who explores how inspiration happens in the brain in his most recent book, Imagine: How Creativity Works.

Lehrer studied neuroscience as an undergraduate, so he approaches the subject from the scientist’s viewpoint. But he also incorporates culture and environment into his analysis of what engenders creativity. If we understand it better, can we train ourselves to be more creative?

It is a fascinating book full of stories of insight on everything from Bob Dylan’s song lyrics to the invention of a new type of mop. He visits 3M, a company with a uniquely long track record of innovation. There he learns how important “not concentrating” is to their researchers. They believe intense focus is not the path to insight. You have to pair that focus with relaxation, downtime, a walk in the woods, or maybe a game of ping pong.

One of the scientific discoveries discussed in the book is that a flurry of alpha waves occurs in the right hemisphere of the brain during moments of insight. Alpha waves are associated with relaxing activities like taking a warm shower. Joydeep Bhattacharya is a psychologist in London whose work Lehrer cites in the book. Bhattacharya says, “That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers. For many people, it’s the most relaxing part of their day.”

So when the answer to that thorny problem seems illusive, maybe it’s time to get away from the office and waste some time so your brain can really get to work.

As founder and Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie has engineered the growth of Advent into one of the world’s leading providers of software and services to the investment management industry.

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In September of last year an announcement from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, rocked the scientific world. They claimed that in their experiments, particles called neutrinos were recorded traveling faster than the speed of light.

This news was astounding because it challenged Einstein’s theory of relativity and the entire foundation of modern particle physics. The famous equation E=mc², equates mass with the energy contained within it. The “c” in the equation represents the speed of light, about 186,000 miles a second. If particles can move faster than the speed of light then the basis of the theories of relativity, gravity, and ideas about the evolution of the universe are called into question. No wonder the news rocked the science world!

However, CERN recently announced that the previously reported results may have been wrong because of a loose cable. “There is a screw and you have to turn it, but we’re not sure it was well calibrated,” said a CERN spokesman.

Huh?

I’ve always had a vision of CERN as the paragon of scientific research, brimming with labs full of brilliant astrophysicists. CERN is best known for its huge particle accelerators. With a circumference of 17 miles, the Large Hadron Collider, built between 1998 and 2008 at a total cost approaching 7.5 billion euros, is the world’s biggest atom smasher and the most expensive piece of scientific equipment ever built!

A single screw?

It’s a reminder that we live in a complex world where the tiniest error can have enormous consequences.

Every day at Advent, we worry about the “little things” that can trip up our systems and our customers. Quality, reliability, checks and balances are a big part of the culture at Advent. We have teams of people building new things all the time, but equally important are the people whose job it is to do the testing and quality assurance. We count on them so that our customers can count on us.

As founder and Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie has engineered the growth of Advent into one of the world’s leading providers of software and services to the investment management industry.

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In recent Executive Blog posts, Pete and Stephanie both discussed Advent’s vision for the future. We aim to put Advent in an even better position to deliver on the promise we make to our clients – to empower the user to efficiently focus on what makes their firm unique and valuable with solutions that are easy to use, easy to own, and easy to scale.

What does this vision mean for our day-to-day R&D efforts? It means we’re going to keep being the company you count on to deliver solutions to your critical operational challenges, but we’re going to do it in a way that is easier, faster and more open than ever before.

Pete pointed out that one core component of investing in change is the adoption of cloud delivery for clients to use our solutions. While critically important, moving our solutions to the cloud is only one part of a much broader re-thinking of how we build and deliver our solutions.

As we plan the future of our solutions, we are guiding our engineering teams with the following principles to complement our core tenets of innovation, responsiveness and reliability:

1. Focus on the individual user – who they are and what they want to do
2. Design for mobile platforms from the outset, to ensure that our clients can access their workflows wherever and whenever they need to
3. Deliver solutions to business problems and workflows, instead of products
4. Implement intuitive user experiences that are simple, interactive, elegant, and alive
5. Address global needs during design to provide operational efficiency internationally
6. Weave social media into the fabric of everything we deliver
7. Empower an ecosystem of solution providers to solve problems beyond what we have the capacity to deliver ourselves
8. Build to the cloud first while continuing to support and evolve the enterprise install

By adopting and implementing these principles, we will reinvent the way that our clients interact with Advent.

• It shouldn’t be hard for clients to use the latest – new solutions will be available through a flick of a switch and are intuitive enough to learn on the fly and support pro-actively.
• Clients should not have to worry about whether they can access their solutions on phones, tablets, or through a browser – all Advent-delivered solutions will be designed and built to work across all platforms in the same way.
• Clients shouldn’t need to move between disparate applications and workflows to solve their business problems – all solutions will be tightly integrated and seamlessly presented, whether they are Advent or third party.
• Every user is part of a community — whether it’s the firm, counterparties, or investors — and people expect instant access to their network, so woven into all solutions will be the ability to discuss, follow, and share with whomever you want.

This reinvention of our solutions won’t happen overnight, but we are well on our way and will be delivering on these principles and initiatives in the coming years. The engineering teams are working at an unprecedented pace because we all know that this transformation isn’t about technology for technology’s sake – it’s about delivering on Advent’s core promise: delivering innovation that helps your firm’s technology and operational infrastructure be a key competitive advantage that drives value for you and your firm.

Todd is SVP and General Manager of Advent’s Global Accounts and Tamale business units. In this role, he has global responsibility for product design, delivery, implementation and support of Advent’s solutions for the alternative asset management industry. Todd also oversees the ongoing product strategy, development, and delivery of Advent’s Tamale research management solution.

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At Advent we talk a lot about the cloud, about mobile technology, and about social networking.

It’s exciting stuff and as Advent’s CFO, I get to view these technology trends not only from the point of view of what they mean for our clients, but also from the lens of our 1,200 employees working around the world.

But today my head is not in the clouds. We are only a few hours away from “cutover” in our own ERP system upgrade. This ERP system holds all of our critical financial information and is the backbone to our business processes – it’s is equivalent to Advent’s Axys, APX, Geneva and Black Diamond for our clients as the work horse for producing all of our financial statements.

Cutover is merely the final step in a massive project that began in April last year, employed 6 external consultants and dozens of employees, and included three test cycles and a mock cutover two weeks ago.  In the “Go/No Go” decision meeting last week, we finally said “Go!”.

As I reflect on this project, it gives me an appreciation for the hundreds of our clients who are implementing, upgrading, or enhancing your Advent products.  Like me, you’re excited about the promise of greater functionality that will help you drive your business.

But, of course, I’m also anxious. Cutovers feel like purgatory. I know we’ll get to the other side and be up and running on Monday. But in the meantime I am paid to worry. And I’ll be doing that for the next 96 hours.

Lucky for you, my colleagues are paid to reduce your worries. When you are in the cutover process, we are with you every step of the way. And as we look ahead, my colleagues in product development, services and support are working hard to make our products easier to implement, use and maintain. And one day soon, there won’t be a need for upgrades like this anymore! Right about now, as I sit here counting the hours to cutover (95 to go…), that sounds pretty darn good.

Jim joined Advent in 2006 and is now Chief Financial Officer. In this role, he is responsible for Advent’s accounting, financial reporting, treasury, tax and finance related operations.

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How do baseball and Darwin help me understand how to reinvent Advent?

When I read Michael Lewis’s Moneyball several years ago, I couldn’t put it down.  I’m not a particularly big baseball fan, but I was fascinated by the story Lewis pieced together of creativity, innovation, perseverance, and challenging long-held orthodoxies. With the lowest payroll in major league baseball, the A’s needed to change to survive. And so their manager, Billy Beane, fundamentally rethought how to build a team, how to identify talent, and how to focus on outcomes, bucking years of hallowed practices and accepted “truths” along the way.

I didn’t know I had a favorite business author until I started reading Geoffrey Moore—the author of Dealing with Darwin and Escape Velocity.  Who knew that an English major could be so influential in identifying the forces that determine whether technology companies will evolve, adapt and succeed, or ossify, become dinosaurs and fail.  Moore has studied countless companies that have successfully evolved to thrive as the world has changed (IBM, Apple, Intuit), and ones that haven’t (Xerox, HP, Sun).  And in so doing, he’s identified the patterns and practices that lead in both directions.

What does this mean for Advent? To me, lots.  At Advent we have a history of inventing and then reinventing products and services for investment managers, from The Professional Portfolio to Axys, Moxy, Geneva, ACD—the list goes on and on. The thing is, we’ve got to keep doing it.  The key here is to ensure that questioning the status quo is part of our DNA—so that in fact questioning the status quo IS definitively the norm in our culture.

We held our internal kickoff earlier this month, and our theme was “Reinventing Advent.” The theme reinforces the idea that we need to continuously reshape our business—our products, services, internal processes, everything.  The same way Bill Beane did at the A’s—and IBM, Apple and Intuit have done to thrive in a changing world.  And in so doing help define the world we play in.

To be clear, this is not about abandoning our heritage and what has made us strong. It’s about building on it, and being willing to let go of things that have made us strong in the past—but won’t in the future—so that we can embrace new ideas, client needs and opportunities. Not immediate step-function changes, but rather evolving and adapting at a pace that will keep us ahead—ahead of our clients’ needs, the market and our competition.

This is fun! Change is exciting and daunting at the same time—and there will be successes and course corrections along the way. Whether it’s rethinking how we deploy APX, moving to the Cloud, or reinventing our performance review process, I believe we’re ready. Based on what I saw at kickoff, this is what we are all very fired up to do.

John Brennan is Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Facilities at Advent. In his role, John focuses on building and strengthening Advent’s world-class organization with programs and strategies for recruiting, developing  and retaining the industry’s strongest talent.

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By now you’ve most likely heard about Stephanie DiMarco’s decision to step back after almost 30 years as Advent’s leader. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of working with Stephanie knows that I have some very big shoes to fill as the next CEO.

Stephanie not only started Advent – she has played the lead role in shaping the culture of the company and positively influenced the lives of her employees along the way. Her influence has spread to Advent clients as well, many of whom still recall Stephanie herself coming to the office to implement our solutions 20-plus years ago. Under Stephanie’s leadership, Advent has grown into a very strong business that has never stopped evolving and improving as a partner to our clients.

Stephanie was behind all of Advent’s great innovations that have helped shape the industry so far, including bringing portfolio management technology to the PC, delivering the first integrated investment management technology suite, helping the hedge fund marketplace to scale with the invention of Geneva, simplifying custodial reconciliation with Advent Custodial Data (ACD), and much more.  She should be enormously proud of the positive impact she has had on thousands of lives and the investment management industry as a whole and it’s been a privilege to be part of her team.

I am humbled and excited that Stephanie and Advent’s Board of Directors have chosen me to follow in her footsteps. I have been very fortunate to have the support and counsel of many talented teammates and mentors along the way, as well as the benefit of many close client relationships to help me keep perspective on the needs of this rapidly changing industry. Thank you all for your candor and commitment to helping me and the rest of Advent’s team improve.

I am incredibly excited about the future at Advent. We are committed to a vision where our solutions are more closely integrated and functionally rich, but also much more easily implemented, adopted and owned – a vision where our service is increasingly proactive, our solutions more responsive and adaptable to your specific needs, and where we are increasingly open to enable your choice in the selection of other key provider relationships. In other words, our vision is to make it as easy as possible for you to succeed. We have the resources and the commitment to realize our vision. It will be a great ride for us all, and I am thrilled to showcase our exciting progress in both Monte Carlo in May and Las Vegas in September at our EMEA and US client conferences, AdventConnect 2012.

I promise that Advent will follow a strategy that empowers your firm to deliver an exceptional experience to your clients. We will listen and lead so that your firm’s technology and operational infrastructure prove to be one of your key competitive advantages. At no time in our industry’s history has technology and process been so important – there has never been a better time for us all to lead each other and to shine.  I speak for the whole Advent team when I say thank you for your continued trust in Advent, and we look forward to doing great things together in the years ahead.

Follow Pete Hess on Twitter: @hess_peter

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