MS Visio

Dear Mr. D

I would just like to offer my help with any upcoming projects that might require the use of MS Visio.  I have experience using Visio and can assist with any questions your group may have in using this program.

In terms of my experience and background, in my former role as an analyst in the Risk Management department, I was part of a team that was responsible for setting certain Investment Limits and Guidelines as well as trying to automate reporting and processes around those Limits and Guidelines.  Our team worked with the IT department for automation, but it was up to us to come up with process flow diagrams to explain exactly how limits should be calculated.   These process flows could be different depending on what asset class we were working on and what type of limit we were using.  It did not seem that drawing these workflows on a napkin and providing it to the IT department was the best possible scenario.

MS Visio is a program that one of the other members of my team was familiar with and taught the group how to use.  The program is a highly effective way to graphically show the flow of information or processes or even when explaining complex calculations which need to be done using inputs from various systems.  While my stint in the Risk Management unit has passed, I've recently come across more usefulness for Visio in my current role.

The Investments Department has just announced an initiative to begin third party asset management within multiple asset classes -- one of which is the group I currently work in.  Just this past week those involved in the new initiative have been working with our Operations Department to come up with some work flows for possible third party accounts.  Both my group and our potential investment partners need to fully understand the process flow for this new business.  Who will be responsible for investment decisions?  How will data be transferred between our two companies?  Among many, many more questions. 

While most of the questions involved do not necessarily have simple and/or straight forward answers, Visio is helping us to determine what the proper process should be.  Documenting and working through each process with a visual Visio diagram can also show where there may be duplicative efforts and could lead to a more streamlined process overall.  

This new initiative, and with the aid of Visio has caused our department to think outside the group.  The investment process does not solely take place within our unit, we work with various other departments throughout the organization and while we may believe that a process is working just fine from our perspective another group a little further down the chain may have a completely different view.  For instance, I just found out that in order for one of our trades to show up on our accounting system, someone in our Back Office actually has to fax a trade ticket to the firm that is responsible for our books and records.  Yes, in this day and age, we still need to fax information as opposed to sending something electronically or, even better, having an automatic feed of some sort.  My point here is, without working through the process from start to finish and using Visio to see the actual flow of information, this would have never been brought to light.

This just gives a little background and shows some instances of where Visio has been useful for two departments within our organization and with the new third party initiative moving forward with your department as well, Visio could be very helpful.  Please feel free to let me know if I can be of assistance.