About the client

This client is a privately held fund administrator specializing in alternative investment funds. The firm provides comprehensive services across fund accounting, investor services, and regulatory compliance, supporting hedge funds, private equity, and other alternative managers. With more than 200 employees and serving clients globally, they operate internationally across multiple jurisdictions, including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland.

Challenges to success

With over $100 billion in assets under administration and an extremely high client retention rate, the company’s success was built on technology and trust. While they had strong IT and cybersecurity foundations, leadership wanted to ensure its technology infrastructure could scale effectively and support long-term stability. To gain an objective outside perspective, they engaged CohnReznick to conduct a technology diagnostic assessment to illuminate risks, identify cost savings opportunities, and chart a course for sustainable growth.

Actions taken

CohnReznick’s team’s approach was holistic – interviewing leadership, analyzing company data, and benchmarking the IT organization against industry peers. They identified four critical priorities:

• Key business applications
• IT organization and talent
• Cloud spending
• Cybersecurity protocols

This was a truly objective exercise, designed to surface clear strategic guidance for the future.

The company’s IT team has long demonstrated strong commitment and capability, and its established structure and legacy systems have supported the business well. As the pace of change accelerates, these foundations present an opportunity to enhance agility and modernize for the future. A diagnostic review revealed opportunities to adopt a hybrid staffing model that blends internal expertise with external specialists, optimize an overbuilt Azure environment, and bring greater discipline to IT spending. By formalizing governance through frameworks like COBIT and ITIL, and adopting a “run, grow, transform” budgeting approach,  they could better align technology investments with long-term business priorities rather than short-term fixes.

At the same time, modernization and security emerged as critical priorities. Legacy platforms such as Sage 50 and custom-built tools were creating operational challenges, while the cybersecurity program, though layered, would benefit from a more cohesive framework and streamlined vendor management. The path forward includes migrating to scalable solutions like NetSuite with third-party support, consolidating security vendors, implementing CIS controls, and engaging a virtual CISO. Together, these steps would transform the existing IT function into a more agile, cost-efficient, and strategically aligned enabler of growth.

Finally, the company’s core applications are hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud with an environment that was intentionally designed for reliability, with strong safeguards to ensure continuity in the event of disruption. However, the diagnostic revealed that this level of robustness came at a cost, with many resources underutilized. Annual hosting expenses were well above what was necessary to meet business needs. By streamlining the environment and aligning capacity more closely with actual demand, the company has the opportunity to reduce costs, ease the management burden, and create flexibility for future outsourcing or modernization initiatives.

Results

The diagnostic revealed significant opportunities for cost savings and operational improvements with significant potential annual savings by outsourcing infrastructure, helpdesk, and cybersecurity functions. Cloud optimization alone could yield an additional 10% of the total projected savings each year. By modernizing its application stack, the firm stood to reduce manual work, improve scalability, and enhance operational efficiency.

Beyond cost savings, the transformation laid the groundwork for a more agile IT organization. New governance frameworks brought added discipline to decision-making, while streamlined cloud architecture reduced management burdens and created flexibility for future outsourcing or modernization initiatives.

Path forward

With a clear roadmap in hand, our client is now poised to evolve its IT function into a true enabler of growth. The next phase includes hiring a CIO or IT Director with strong business acumen to lead strategic initiatives, conducting regular maturity assessments, and continuing to consolidate vendors for efficiency and control.

The firm will also focus on scaling its IT operations to support evolving business priorities, leveraging a hybrid staffing model to maintain agility while tapping into specialized expertise. Cybersecurity will be strengthened through the implementation of CIS controls and the engagement of a virtual CISO, helping make sure that protection keeps pace with innovation.

Their journey reflects a broader truth for mid-sized financial services firms: Success today requires not just robust systems, but the right-sized ones. By embracing change and investing in strategic transformation, the company is turning its IT organization into a catalyst for future growth.