Ray Tierney: Capital markets’ firms today across regions and the globe are facing incredible challenges as it pertains to like geopolitical, macro and business related risks. Coupled that with the regulatory kind of direction the markets are taking specifically towards short and settlement cycles, firms are very, very challenged in terms of managing their businesses each and every single day. You know, which to me is really the driver behind why firms are thinking about simplification and innovation as they move forward. Right? Everybody always like complex. That dynamic has changed a lot as the markets are making more markets more difficult to kind of interact each and every single day and to run their businesses. So, to me, as we go forward, simplification and innovation of, you know, technology, data and systems and quite frankly, vendors and the partners you pick to choose and bring into your environment are going to be critical catalysts to running your businesses effectively going forward.

I would cite three. So, number one, limitations on business agility. Firms are stuck in old ways, right? And whether it's interacting with new technologies, leveraging ways to use data, that would be one one aspect. I think fragmented systems. Historically, legacy tech stacks are fragmented and littered with numerous different technology partners and systems that make it very, very difficult in the environment we're in to leverage data in an effective way. And again, siloed processes also stagnate or slow down your ability to kind of innovate and disrupt as the markets demand change on a going forward basis.