Insight

A note from the CEO – What makes a trend a trend?

What makes a trend a trend? After all, it’s a word that has been seen with increasing regularity these days. Twitter and other social media platforms inform us of what conversations are trending, and as they can come and go within days and even a few hours, true trends that stick and become meaningful are rare. These types of trends are hard to stop once they’ve picked up steam. Initially, trends disrupt. That’s what CloudMargin was doing a year or two back. Now we are moving from being “new and different” to modeling the future of this space. Our clients are achieving a significant reduction in costs and reducing operational risk while establishing a secure networked solution for exchanging and managing collateral.

We see CloudMargin trending. Disrupting, picking up steam and becoming a common name in the marketplace. Why?

Trends that create sustainable impact never happen by accident. Our client base continues to grow exponentially (doubling since my last newsletter). Our annual sales are forecast to be triple that of 2016, and through a series of new strategic partnerships, we are advancing into new markets both geographically as well as by client segment. The number of firms using CloudMargin is now over 40, representing over $2 trillion in assets under management (AUM) for our buyside client base alone. The firm continues to expand: we are nearly 50 individuals strong now, based in four locations: London, New York, Singapore, and Cluj (Romania).

But “trending” is a word with multiple contexts so let’s unpack exactly what we mean by it. Every trend begins with an invitation to embrace something different, a unique point of view that stands in direct contrast to a bunch of other similar ones. This gives our trend a unique advantage: an identity. What is CloudMargin? It’s a cloud-based solution that allows users to exchange information simply, cost-effectively and securely where for the most part, only in-house custom built solutions and spreadsheets existed before. So it’s a better mousetrap then? Well, no.  It is coming at the problem from a different angle. It’s a networked solution: one where users can exchange data without using email or external messaging layers, one where data in CloudMargin can be viewed by two or more parties then agreed, disputed-agreed and matched without leaving that single instance, in real-time. It’s more than being a better mousetrap.

But as we have seen, a trend is vulnerable, especially to the late majority and the laggards in the innovation adoption cycle.

Before trends are remembered for being extraordinary, they are questioned for being different.

While some are inclined to embrace change, many feel safer with “the same.” With maturity, that notion of safety, and therefore resistance to change, seems to filter into our companies and our teams, and that inevitably determines our own fate. It’s much easier to model what seems to be working for others instead of doing the hard work of finding (and owning) what we uniquely have to say. The act of articulating exactly why that unique thing we offer the world is different and therefore valuable to others becomes necessary if we want to build a trend, something meaningful that envelops others and grows.

At CloudMargin, we are excited to write our story and gather those looking for change, who want to listen to our unique point of view. As our client base grows, we are more able to leverage the compounding effect of this community.  If you are an existing CloudMargin client, watch this space for a series of announcements in the autumn.  If you’re not an existing client but are interested in our community, please do not hesitate to reach out – we would love to tell you all about us.

In the next two-quarters, we will be launching several new initiatives designed to enhance our clients’ access. Some of these initiatives will be with our partner community. We already have a number of partners, but this number will grow significantly in the near term.  Our intent is to support our clients’ demands through a range of complementary and integrated solutions that, ultimately, form a fabric of best-of-breed providers. We aim to reward that choice by expanding the solutions on offer and under one roof so that we enhance your ability to achieve efficiencies and straight-through processing.

As we continue to “write” our story and forge our own path, I hope you will be able to see why CloudMargin is on this journey, what makes us different and how we are progressing. Have a great summer whatever you plan to do.

Steve Husk

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