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Andrew Rafalaf
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FMC Reorganizes and Redevelops Products for an E-World

Financial Models Company absorbs its Internet Software Consulting division into the whole of the firm and implements customer support software to provide global clients with 24-hour support access.

Financial Models Company, a provider of front- to back-office investment management solutions, has just completed a company reorganization that included absorbing its Internet Software Consulting division into the whole of the firm and implementing customer support software so it can provide global clients with 24-hour support access.

FMC is also in the process of porting all of its software over to a new Web-based Windows NT platform, code-named "Sparta," whereby clients will access their trading, portfolio analytics, accounting and other systems via a standard Web browser.

The remnants of SRG Software, which FMC acquired in March of 1999 and renamed FMC Software Consulting, have been completely dispersed throughout the firm. The division had been charged with developing Web sites for FMC clients, but Jim Colvin, executive vice president, explains that as the company focuses more on the Internet, it became necessary to distribute that talent throughout all of its product divisions.

"What we've been able to do with the Software Consulting Group is use those resources to accelerate our Web development," Colvin explains. "Because we believe the future of the firm is tied to the Web, this is precisely the reason we want to make sure that expertise is disseminated throughout the entire organization."

Peter Suma, president of FMC SC, is currently heading a "secret" project for the company, but no one at the company could speak further about his new position.

From FMC SC came the "Sparta" platform. Currently, FMC Model-a portfolio modeling system-and FMC Trade have already been ported over to the new platform, and FMCNet, the company's electronic trade network, is being beta tested with the new architecture. Colvin claims that all of FMC's systems will be on the Sparta architecture by year's end. A key component of Sparta's success is an XML data transfer that will allow each FMC module to import and export data from the others in a seamless fashion.

"With the XML data transfer, when a transaction gets entered into one system, it will be automatically piped into other systems," Colvin says. "This is absolutely necessary in the world of STP. You don't want to rely on somebody to run a process that extracts data. It all has to happen instantaneously."

The firm is also gearing up to release E-Pages, a client-reporting system that "prints" to the Web, rather than to paper. Colvin points out that many of FMC's clients have the desire to offer their clients Web-based access to their accounts, but have little time and energy to deal with the development of a site. E-Pages offers them an out-of-the-box solution that is hosted by FMC but branded with the money management firm's logo. As a result, investors never realize they are moving from the money manager's proprietary site to the FMC-hosted data mart.

Looking to practice what it preaches, FMC has also converted its internal systems over to a corporate intranet, so that all employees have access to the same information at the same time. The vendor has installed Clientele, a CRM product by Epicor that allows its sales and support staff to manage clients on a global basis.

"We can have a client with an office in Europe that initiates a support call-that's logged into the software-and that can be tracked by our London office for a period of time before it's transitioned over to New York or Toronto," Colvin says. "We're in the process of opening an operation in Australia, so that we can offer support in that timezone, so organizations that are looking for 24-hour support can actually get it."

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