Making the Shade – revisited

Making the Shade – revisited

2021-03-14

Making the Shade – revisited

Last April, as the COVID crisis was reaching a peak in New York City, I wrote a blog called “Business – Making the Shade” which looked at how firms in our vertical were reacting in the early days of the pandemic.

What I saw was that business was continuing, that firms in our space (clients and vendors) were fortunate to be able to shift to a remote model and maintain operations. Our contingency planning (tested in October 2019) proved invaluable. We went to 100% remote overnight and continued to deliver product enhancements and implementation projects.  Firms were still looking for solutions, automation / STP had risen as a priority, and Cloud was more and more of interest. Digital Transformation, already a focus prior to the pandemic took on even more importance.

There’s been plenty of unexpected issues and trends too. Who would have predicted stock market highs and smaller and mid-size institutions having much greater assets under management as a result of programs such as PPP, potentially requiring them to file additional reports to the regulator?

2020 brought bad news to millions of Americans and billions globally. The northern hemisphere is now in a new wave and the southern hemisphere may look like it may get worse.  But it is not all bad news. There is light at the end of the tunnel, we have multiple vaccines available, with more to come, and life will return to a more normal situation as the year progresses.

In April 2020 I quoted Warren Buffet “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”. This remains true. Many of our clients have completed upgrade projects, increased STP capability and created more shade for themselves. Here in N. America, we’ve added to our customer base, including two very significant customers – one on the cloud and another in the traditional on-premises model. One of those customers signed for our Megara solution and will be the first to utilize it in N. America, a real vote of confidence in VERMEG and the future. The other signed a large global agreement for our award-winning COLLINE to help it manage collateral on a more efficient and automated basis globally.  These customers are building their own shade. The addition of new customers helps VERMEG, and, through increased investment in our solutions is beneficial to our existing client base.

As we head into year two of the pandemic, we can look to the future with hope. Vaccines are being delivered, we have seen some signs of recovery in the unemployment numbers, there is confidence in the markets and our worst fears have not been realized. Speaking for VERMEG in N. America, we are in a stronger position than ever – with more customers and projects in the pipe. We need to keep planting for the future, the green leaves will come out, and with the right planning and approach, we may look back on this time of distress as a time when we took the right steps to ensure a more comfortable future.

 

FERGAL LEONARDGENERAL MANAGER – NORTH AMERICA

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