Man Group is focused on delivering alpha and portfolio solutions for customers, across a diverse range of strategies and asset classes
STX Next, a global leader in IT consulting, has successfully developed and maintained 16 different applications to help Man Group, a global, technology-empowered active investment management firm, invest funds more effectively.
An experienced frontend development team built stable and trustworthy solutions, with each application delivered by STX Next displaying a unique set of features that provide greater visibility for portfolio managers across investments.
The challenge
STX Next was tasked with implementing a range of technical and business-focused solutions for Man Group, who expected minimal disturbances to the daily operations of both its staff and customers.
The brief required STX Next to build user-oriented tools with design practices and cohesive branding in mind, while increasing the value of developed solutions and instilling trust and loyalty in customers. This included a systematised build-up process that kept interface language consistent.
Furthermore, STX Next had to consider effective ways to streamline the process of building new solutions and improving current ones, consolidating interface solutions across all projects and keeping them unified at all branches.
The solution
Man Group was looking for a frontend development team as the company already had a solid backend team in-house and faced some hiring challenges. STX Next put together a team of experienced engineers that created high-quality solutions and established a long-lasting relationship with the customer.
STX Next implemented a wide range of applications, covering not only end-to-end solutions but also pre-existing project improvements and more task-oriented initiatives. This included:
- Data set aggregation
Man Group wanted to put the data and content first. As a result, STX Next streamlined data processing and analysis which helped the team gain deeper insights and make better-informed decisions
- Risk and portfolio management
With an already standardised and maintained design system STX Next was able to build a highly customisable set of widgets and dashboards for each specialist
- Funds drill down app
By putting user needs as the centre of all work, STX Next created a dense but legible interface allowing Man Group to gain instant insights into fund performance. A clear overview of all information helped forecast future performance and identify new opportunities for growth
- Massive data on extra-large screens
Visualising data through interactive dashboards allowed STX Next to monitor performance indicators and identify trends and anomalies that require further investigation. Working on massive data sets in a decision-making context requires a lot of operational space. Each project had a specific viewport from a big screen monitor to even larger data displays.
The results
STX Next’s highly experienced frontend development teams created a set of tools for portfolio managers, implemented an interactive data catalogue and dashboards, and redesigned many internal applications.
Thanks to STX Next’s work, Man Group experienced a range of positive impacts:
- An enhanced data discovery process due to a rich and interactive frontend allows for tracking, progress monitoring, and analysis of ongoing projects
- A building tool for portfolio managers allowing filtering for existing projects using predefined scenarios, that predicts the risks, resources involved and the financial parameters of the project
- Redesigned internal applications with real-time tables and graphs that can be viewed on a big screen
- Dashboard for portfolio performance analysis with detailed insights
- A unified UI across all applications and a toolkit that can support building and redesigning apps in the future
- The ability to search databases and all available resources
Commenting on the partnership, Łukasz Koczwara, COO at STX Next, said: “Each and every application we’ve designed, maintained and updated during our collaboration with Man Group has been built with usability in mind, with the ultimate aim of streamlining interaction for portfolio managers. Through improved visibility, Man Group can make more informed investment choices on behalf of its clients, by leveraging intelligent applications that can accurately predict their needs.”
