Julien Villemonteix, CEO, UpSlide
AI and automation technology is impacting every industry, and finance is certainly no exception. Investment banks in particular are integrating automation into the M&A process to improve efficiency and create competitive advantage.
As the M&A market becomes more competitive, investments in AI and automation have the potential to give firms a competitive edge. To be successful, however, these investments need to be strategically aligned.
So, how is tech impacting M&A deal teams and what does a good software strategy look like?
Pitch perfection
Winning mandates and RFPs in the world of M&A has always relied on an impressive and flawless pitchbook.
With the market growing more competitive, delivering brand compliant, flawless and impactful pitchbooks is more crucial than ever. Brand flaws or inaccurate data can be the difference between success and failure.
Traditionally, analysts and associates would be called upon to spend hours ensuring a pitch deck was faultless and on-brand, which was often a time-intensive and high-pressure exercise. However, technology is changing this, allowing pitchbook creation to be automated and ensuring brand compliance, accuracy and design consistency.
Automation is also helping teams to streamline pitchbook content and condense ever growing volumes of information into a smaller number of slides. This is important at a time when attention spans are short and making an impact is harder than ever.
Less can be more
The last few years of challenging macroeconomic conditions have seen many investment bank deal teams reduce headcount. Our recent survey of investment banking teams found that 48% of deal teams have shrunk leading to greater demand on the remaining members, often junior bankers.
With the pressure on to do more with less, harnessing the power of technology can be a huge advantage. When used to its full potential, automation and AI can liberate junior bankers in particular from repetitive, time consuming tasks such as data entry and slide design at the click of a button.
As the rest of the year plays out, technology that is tailored to the financial industry has the potential to allow small and mid-market firms to compete ever more effectively with larger firms. Therefore, a forward-thinking tech strategy is going to be crucial to investment banks.
Smart application
In the new world of automation and AI, big budgets aren’t the answer to everything. Larger firms with generous IT budgets may be able to outspend on automation but if technology is badly integrated and rolled-out, this investment can struggle to generate a return.
Our research discovered the investment banking sector is wasting millions on badly managed software which is not being used to its full potential. In fact, 68% of IT leaders in the finance space believe banks are wasting a quarter of their IT budgets on underutilised or redundant technology.
For boutique firms as well as industry powerhouses, choosing software strategically and ensuring robust implementation and integration into existing tech stacks will be key. As automation and AI become ever more central to investment bank operations, technology, and the way it is used, will be key to a firm’s success.
