The Absent Catalyst
If your current toolkit has worked for years and is deeply embedded in your team, it’s easy to see technology as unnecessary change. Longstanding systems, even if outdated, often feel "safe" simply because they are known quantities. They’ve seen you and your team through volatile markets, investment committee cycles, and operational audits. This familiarity creates a strong psychological and procedural inertia, where the cost of changing tools seems higher than the benefit of adopting new ones.
However, perceived safety can quietly limit adaptability, scalability, and long-term competitiveness.
For many investment manager selectors, change is often perceived as both extra effort and risk. New tools or softwares require onboarding, training, and internal buy-in. There’s uncertainty around data integrity, integration with legacy systems, and whether the new technology will genuinely deliver better outcomes. For teams already stretched thin, introducing change feels overwhelming like opening a door to more complexity.
Moreover, familiarity is hard to leave behind. Many manager evaluators still follow a process that has not fundamentally changed in decades: from cold calling managers, mailing paper due diligence requests, to relying on manual notes and spreadsheets. These tools may feel dependable, but they also mask the process with inefficiencies that have accumulated over time. Without transparency of the inefficiencies (duplicated effort, lost insights, or opaque decision-making, etc.), manager selection teams may be unaware of how much friction has been normalised. Besides, familiarity can dull the urgency to improve, even as the investment management industry shifts around it.
However, this resistance is actually not unique to asset manager selection. It’s human, and amplified at the organisational level. Inertia sets in, especially without a clear catalyst.
An Emerging Ally
Technology has quietly become indispensable, not just in our personal lives, but across various industries. From how we communicate to how we shop, navigate, and learn, technology has reshaped every facet of modern life. What once required manual planning and effort now happens seamlessly through digital interfaces. The shift has been so gradual and intuitive that it is easy to forget just how dependent we have become on it. We once resisted software, now we download apps without hesitation. The initial skepticism around technology has faded. What began with cautious experimentation has become a default behavior. In many ways, resistance has given way to reliance.
In the corporate world, enterprise technology drives operations from manufacturing to government intelligence. Most industries have restructured around digital infrastructure. Manufacturing uses real-time sensors and predictive analytics. Government intelligence agencies rely on integrated platforms to manage sensitive data and operations. Even highly regulated sectors like healthcare and finance have adopted end-to-end digital solutions.
More than speed or cost savings, these digital technologies promise precision, transparency, and control.
This transformation is no longer abstract. It's deeply personal and professional. Yet, nowadays, investment management professionals live in both analog and digital realms. Morning meetings may be in person, but decisions are informed by dashboards, scenario models, and real-time alerts. We use digital tools to track portfolios, model asset allocations, and manage risk, so why not use technology for manager selection? It’s a striking contrast: while the front end of investment management is increasingly data-driven and tech-enabled, the process of sourcing and selecting managers often remains manual, fragmented, and risking opaque. Investment manager selectors still rely heavily on legacy workflows (Excel models, PDFs, phone calls, and Outlook folders, etc.) despite the scale and complexity of the decisions at hand. This gap possesses both a missed opportunity and a risk.
Across industries, digital transformation has become synonymous with relevance, and the investment management field is no exception. As other industries continue to evolve, the expectation for transparency, responsiveness, and innovation in asset manager selection will only grow. Investors and manager evaluators who adopt forward-looking data-driven infrastructure not only protect their edge, but enhance it.
The question is no longer if technology should be used, but whether your current tools are still fit for purpose.
Drawing Parallels
The asset manager selection process is made up of several micro-processes, each of which is common in other industries. Similarly, it would be logical for asset manager selection process to be facilitated by their own dedicated mega-app. Potentially merging intellectual property from other industries, into one single straight-through-process via an enterprise solution. Yet, the question is, would they use it? See exhibit 1.
Across the application sphere, developers are faced with the technology adoption curve. The duration of this cycle is determined by the mindset of the user group, and the app's viral/utility factor. This is particularly true post-2020, with hybrid work models accelerating tech adoption across industries. Investment manager evaluation teams are increasingly asking themselves: Where should we be on the curve now?
Where should we be on the curve now?
According to this technology adoption curve, most fall somewhere between Early Majority and Late Majority... hesitant to lead, but open to move once value is proven.
While it’s difficult to pinpoint a single example for all teams, we often see the turning point come when manager selectors face increasing complexity: multi-manager mandates, greater regulatory oversight, or the need for auditable transparency. It’s in these moments that the inefficiencies of legacy tools become undeniable. A growing number of investment manager selectors are turning to enterprise digital tools to lead.
The answer to when you should digitize depends on more than individual conviction.
Overall, it’s about the value to what technology means across departments, workflows, and ultimately, outcomes. Once the utility is clear, the emotional resistance often fades.
What exactly does technology improve? Let’s break it down using the asset manager selection spectrogram, a visual of where classic tools fall short and digital tools shine (Exhibit 2).
At its core, every RFP process involves four tasks: sourcing, evaluating, collaborating, and documenting. Classic tools (databases, Excel, Word, phone, PDFs) were not designed to support these workflows end-to-end. They are fragmented, manual, and liable to governance gaps.
Digital tools built for manager selection process transform this into a single, streamlined workflow. All activities, from distributing DDQs to scoring responses and tracking team feedback happen on one platform. This results in value accretion in terms of efficiency, decision quality, productivity, and the minimisation of governance risk along your value chain. This level of process integration was not possible until recent improvements in cloud-native infrastructure, user experience design, and workflow automation.
The result? What we call the Digital Delta — the sum of small but meaningful gains in:
Each improvement may seem incremental, but together, they compound into better decisions made faster and with more confidence.
Manual workarounds, email requests, scattered data, and duplicative document chases simply do not scale. Neither does reliance on multiple expensive databases, each designed for a sliver of the market. Annual fees of USD 10k–250k+ per asset class can be hard to justify, especially when manager selectors still need to chase critical qualitative data manually.
More investment manager selectors are realising this as they are shifting to RFPnetworks, a technology purposefully built for the whole manager selection process, where quantitative screens, qualitative diligence, team collaboration, and documentation are all centralised in one digital ecosystem. These tools improve Digital Delta: efficiency, team alignment, governance, and decision quality.
The time saved is not just theoretical. Teams that digitise save significant manual labour hours that would otherwise be spent digging on spreadsheets, checking attachments, or tracking evaluation notes manually. This efficiency translates into real savings, not only in labour costs but also in opportunity costs. Time that was once lost on administrative tasks can now be reinvested into deeper analysis, better manager engagement, or higher-quality mandates.
Technology needs to be viewed as the catalyst for change, and its availability and presence should be seen as an opportunity. The shift is not about replacing people; it’s about empowering teams to make smarter decisions, faster. As the industry evolves, staying analog may soon be the bigger risk.
Technology is both an industrial facilitator and a disruptor, but it is no longer the mythical enemy that will displace us all.
Institutional investors often stick with familiar tools in asset manager selection because they feel “safe,” even though they may hinder efficiencies and progress. Technology used to be seen as a risky change, but that perception is shifting. Just as other industries have adopted digital solutions for precision and transparency, the asset management industry is catching up. This shift reflects a broader trend in how manager selectors are adopting the best tools to digitise asset manager selection process, moving away from outdated traditional methods for smarter sourcing, evaluation, and collaboration.
With contributions from: Abigail Dahlan is a Product Specialist responsible for enhancing the user experience of our manager selection and investment manager clients. Thao Do is a Marketing Specialist responsible for creating new thought leadership to help our users enhance their knowledge of our products.
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