Welcome to Money Management Executive's 6th Annual Fund Operations Awards.
You can now find entry forms and detailed guidelines at our website, www.mmexecutive.com.
This year, we have also added a fourth category of New Media, rounding out the traditional three: Leadership, Innovation and Efficiencies/Streamlining.
How is New Media different from Innovation, you might ask? New Media, we believe, represents new, different, refreshingly personal ways that mutual fund companies and other asset management firms that serve retail investors, are communicating with customers, be they the end investors, prime brokers, custodians, wholesalers or other salespeople.
A number of fund companies are actually leading the way in New Media initiatives, starting with even the way they permit employees to communicate and share ideas with one another in their intranets. Instant messaging, tailored direct mail, shareware, social networking and webinars are even becoming customary at some fund houses.
This is exciting, since fund companies haven't been known for being cutting edge.
As far as Leadership is concerned, this category is not as well represented as the others. This is a shame, we believe, because of all of the interesting, high-profile people in our industry. If there is someone at your firm, on your team, among your customers or at a partner company, whom you hold in high regard, please don't keep it to yourself. We'd like to hear about them.
As operations professionals, Efficiencies/Streamlining is often the name of the game. This category often yields some very interesting case studies, and with the markets as turbulent as they have been, undoubtedly will not fail to interest the judges with strong case studies this year, as well.
Finally, Innovation. This category is devoted to companies that are taking new approaches to business-as-usual.
We hope this quick overview whets your appetite and that this year we receive more entries than ever. Also of note, we plan on presenting the 12 winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd Place, in each of the four categories) with their awards in person this September.
So get cracking. Deadline for entries is Friday, July 18. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me directly at: elizabeth.barney@sourcemedia.com.
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