Laura Jesson
Director, Research
Laura Jesson has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry as a project manager, business analyst, and consultant. She joined Cutter Associates in 2013. Prior to Cutter, Laura spent eight years at Wells Capital Management and Evergreen Investments, where she managed investment operations projects, including those focused on outsourcing, client reporting, and trade management. She previously worked at Omgeo as a member of the Central Trade Manager (CTM) product design team. Laura started her career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) as a process consultant supporting a variety of projects for clients in the financial services industry. Laura earned her bachelor of arts in economics and psychology from Amherst College. She holds the Project Manager Professional (PMP) certification.
Recent research assignments and publications include the following:
- AI Use Cases in Investment Management: Infinite Possibilities
- Business Intelligence Tools
- Cutter Benchmarking: Client Reporting
- Cutter Benchmarking: Firmwide ESG Capabilities
- Cutter Benchmarking: Managing Vendors and Service Providers
- DataOps: In Theory and Practice
- Enabling Data Analytics
- ESG Data Management
- ESG: It’s a Jungle Out There ─ A Look at the Data Provider Landscape
- ESG Investing: One Vision, Many Lenses
- Execution Management Systems
- Hybrid Work Arrangements and Their Impact on Firm Culture
- Using RPA to Automate Business Processes
- The Role of the CRM for Asset Managers
Investment management firms recognize that their legacy applications may be limiting their abilities to achieve their broader goals of growth and efficiency. In 2026 and beyond, Cutter predicts that while firms will remain focused on major ongoing initiatives, they will also be taking stock of their core functions (trading, accounting, and performance measurement and attribution) and reevaluating solution options, factoring in capabilities, as well as seeking out vendors and service providers that are open, advancing, and acting as good partners. This analysis, while complex, will inform investment management firms’ future decisions and strategies in the years ahead.
Of surveyed firms …
61%
plan to implement a new performance measurement and attribution system or service by Q2 2027.
Source: Cutter Performance Measurement and Attribution Benchmarking study, May 2025
Current Solutions Are Limiting
For many firms, legacy applications no longer make the best fit ─ either because they do not meet the breadth of their required functionality or due to aging underlying technology. The proliferation of supported asset classes, demand for data, and drive for innovation are magnifying the issues. Firms’ architectures are overly customized and fragmented, creating data silos and complex integration. Further complicating these realities is that these solutions over time have been wrapped in operational procedures and tactical workarounds to make do. Firms acknowledge these limitations and can no longer be throttled in their ability to respond to requests for better data, growth and efficiency goals, and regulatory requirements.
The truth is, it is tough to remain open-minded about new solutions when the familiarity of current solutions inherently makes them integral to the organization’s day-to-day operations. But there comes a time when a firm has to face the facts that gaps in capabilities, cumbersome workarounds, and “because it has always been done this way” no longer cut it.
Opportunities for the Right, Future Fit
Considering change is hard, yet firms are reeducating themselves because they need more ─ and that may mean broader coverage (say, for more complex assets), richer functional offerings, a more open architecture, more automation, and innovative solutions on which they can re-anchor their organization’s needs for long-term use.
Firms are evaluating best-of-breed solutions and broader solutions, including front-to-back platforms. They are also assessing managed services and business process outsourcing (BPO) opportunities. Firms are considering combinations of tools and tools with services for the future. Investment management firms have a good handle on the established players in software and services for these core functions and will, of course, assess their functionality and risks. And Cutter expects our members will be impressed by how providers are using new technology to offer more unified data, efficient workflows, and specialized features. Yet this trend of reevaluation for future fit will not be a simple task ─ ticking off requirements against a simply structured scorecard will not suffice.
In our conversations with firms, we hear more and more about how they value vendors that align with the following fundamental characteristics:
- Openness: Can and will the vendor offer its solution with a contract structure that aligns with the firms’ growth plans and vision? Will there be transparency in commercials for the near- and longer-term?
- Interoperability: Firms seek optionality in how they use their vended solutions and want assurances that vendors can support client use of software and services and will prioritize interoperability with partners and support extended solutions.
- Dependability: Firms have grown frustrated by software providers that have let their product “go” with delayed enhancements and reduced service quality. Their future fit relies on whether a provider will remain focused on the solution and treat them as a trusted and valued partner.
- Future-mindedness: Firms seek vendors that have established strong partnerships with other industry leaders, invest in both functional and technical improvements, and can articulate a clear mid- and long-range product plan.
It Won’t Be Easy … but It’s Time
As vendors actively market their advanced solutions, investment management firms grapple with determining which solutions will make the “right fit” in the future. Given the maturity of the offerings and the number of providers that bundle software and services, firms have lots of work to do to assess their options. Nevertheless, Cutter sees investment management firms putting in the work to reevaluate provider solutions for core functions in 2026 and beyond.
It is time to strategize and be thoughtful. And as George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and Nobel Prize winner, said, “The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”
Helping our member firms keep their finger on the pulse of the vendor and service provider landscape for core business functions is Cutter Research’s bread and butter. Last year, Cutter Research reviewed several front-to-back platform providers and will extend this research into 2026, including a review of several established platform providers. These reviews cover aspects of portfolio management, trading, operations (including corporate actions processing), and accounting functions. We will also cover Performance Systems as a research topic in 2026, as 61% of firms cited implementation plans by 2027 and more than half of Cutter Research members recently endorsed it as a hot topic. If you are interested in this trend and want to help us shape the upcoming research, let’s talk. Reach out at [email protected].