The Client

Chawton Global Investors (https://www.chawtoninvestors.co.uk/), a new global investment company, started its operations in the early part of 2019. Michael Crawford, CEO, was very clear about what he wanted to do:

"Having invested for over 23 years in global stock markets, I knew the approach we wanted to take, founded on deep research and a successful track record operating for some of the biggest investment houses in the City of London. However, I did not have the expertise or the time to look at how we were going to build the all-important technology platform for the business".

The Challenge

Supl was well-placed to help. Simon Hazlitt, CEO, was the co-founder of Majedie Asset Management, responsible for the architecture of its market-leading technology platform and its regulatory application. Through a series of interviews, Simon built up a detailed picture of what Michael was trying to achieve, and how Michael wanted to approach it.

The key aim was to build a technology platform that brought out the unique character of Chawton without overburdening the new company with excessive bureaucracy or cost. In the process of drawing up the blueprint for the technology platform, it was clear that Michael wanted a business that could be conducted from anywhere, a wise consideration given the effects of the Coronavirus emergency. It was also important to integrate the build with what Michael had already achieved - a solid Google Workspace implementation, and a healthy newsletter community, built through Mailchimp.

The Solution

The solution implemented by Supl fell into three parts. First, while Google provided core email facilities, it did not extend to an enterprise document management store, where Chawton users could see a golden copy of all the company documents. Second, whilst Mailchimp was good at managing the monthly emails, it did not provide any deeper functionality to manage the list of prospects that Michael had built up to grow wider conversations about the fund. Last, one of the strongest features of Chawton's approach is its research, but there was no comprehensive system in place to maximise its value.

Supl chose Zoho to provide the solution. With over 50 cloud applications all integrated together, Zoho offered the best fit to hit the three immediate objectives, whilst providing for company growth in the future. Zoho Workdrive provided the document store, providing a single cloud location to store and manage documents (accessible by smartphone and tablet). Individual folders can be shared to separate service providers, allowing for integration across company boundaries. 

Zoho CRM provided the client management solution. Its deep functionality allows for the comprehensive management of individual prospects and their companies, with effective integration to both Google (to bring all shared emails into the CRM in context) and Mailchimp, where mailing lists could be maintained from Zoho data, allowing for information about a particular prospect's activities with the newsletter to be stored alongside other interaction data - meeting notes, emails etc. 

Zoho Wiki was used to power the Chawton research content. Typically such research sits in a series of word documents and excel sheets, offering value when each document was opened, but little in terms of a searchable store. Zoho Wiki allows for the same singular depth when focused on an individual stock, but through a tag cloud and a powerful search tool, themes can be threaded between shares and notes updated on the fly with new developments, keeping research alive, accessible and flexible. Zoho Cliq was added to the research piece to add a structured message board.

The Outcome

Chawton has managed to combine the technological heft of a medium-sized company whilst maintaining the costs and flexibility of a very small business. Bringing Zoho to bear not only transformed Chawton's immediate capabilities, it will grow with them over time. Fund management requires much patience, both in terms of core portfolio management but also in underlying business growth, as potential investors require time to get comfortable. It is vital that Chawton has the capability to operate effectively in portfolio performance and marketing coherence, especially in the early stages. However, it needs to do it in a way that places as light a burden as possible on the profit and loss account.