GTIS Partners streamlines DDQ process using Robin AI

GTIS Partners streamlines DDQ process using Robin AI  

Find out how GTIS Partners leveraged Robin AI to accelerate the completion of DDQs, with the average time to complete a DDQ reduced from 5-10 days to 1-3 days.

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About GTIS Partners

GTIS Partners is a global real estate investment firm headquartered in NY. Delivering a best-in-class experience to investors, as well as striving for operational excellence, is at the heart of their mission.

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The challenge

Maria Szabo, Vice President of Investor Relations at GTIS Partners is primarily responsible for the turnaround of DDQs, supporting the wider team with the acquisition of new investors and managing existing investor relationships. As Maria notes, “DDQs can be lengthy, complex, time-consuming documents to complete.”

When it came to managing the turnaround of DDQs, Maria commented that there were two key challenges, “finding the DDQs themselves was hard as the documents were not centrally stored – they were often associated with each fund. So, it would take me 1 hour – 1h 30 mins to make sure I had access to the correct documents. Then the completion of the DDQs themselves was an onerous process as I had to Alt+Tab my way through previous completed documents to find the answers I needed buried in them. Completing a DDQ was taking 5 days - 10 days to complete on average, depending on the complexity of the request.”

The time spent completing the majority of DDQs was creating a lot of additional work for Maria, as information was disjointed, and she didn’t have access to tools that enabled her to quickly retrieve the information needed from previously completed DDQs.  

It also meant that where she didn’t have access or couldn’t find the information from previously completed DDQs, it resulted in time spent engaging with colleagues in different departments from Finance to PortfolioManagement to get the answers needed to submit the first draft of the DDQ to the Chief Compliance Officer.

The length of time it took to complete DDQs, and the amountof input required from other teams meant that this process was ripe for optimisation.  And with the need to further enhance the experience for prospective and existing investors, Maria wanted to ensure these documents were being turned around as quickly as possible.

Exploring solutions

Before hearing about Robin AI through a colleague, Maria had taken a proactive approach to trying to optimise the DDQ completion process, first by creating a Word document with the path to all the completed DDQs. She then iterated on that process by instead storing the DDQs within the businessCRM system, which helped to make the documents easier to find.

However, this approach was not without its challenges, and it did not solve the issue of finding the information within the DDQs themselves. Maria commented, “I still had to open all of them and search through them one at a time, although the process was a little faster than before.” A single source of truth for DDQs was required, with the ability to quickly pull out previously completed responses, especially to common themes like questions relating to ESG or DEI.

Finding an approach that worked for GTIS

After seeing Robin AI in action for the first time, Maria remarked that she remembered thinking, “this will make my life so much easier.”

Following a discussion with the Robin AI team about how theAI-powered search could support her requirements for process optimisation and greater efficiency, Maria and her colleagues at GTIS were confident that RobinAI was the right business partner to deliver improvements to the DDQs process.

Due to the nature and complexity of DDQs, Maria knew that having a tool like Robin AI that would enable her to quickly ascertain the information that she needed, would have a big impact on her time, and on her colleagues across different areas of the business.

The team at Robin AI worked closely with Maria to ensure that DDQs were centrally stored, and easily searchable, with different sections labelled using machine learning techniques. With a focus on solving a specific use case for DDQs, Robin AI’s powerful search capabilities meant that all the previously completed responses on topics or themes, like ESG and DEI, could be found in seconds.

As Robin AI enabled simple filtering and provided natural language search capabilities, Maria no longer had to open all the previously completed DDQs, searching through them one by one for the correct information.“Now I just open Robin AI and use the search to find the information I need to complete DDQs. It now takes me 1-3 days to turnaround a DDQ, when it used to take 5-10 days depending on the complexity.”

Benefits of Robin AI seen in the Investor Relations team and beyond

The main advantage of using Robin AI? Maria says, “it’s made everyone’s life easier.”

Faster DDQ turnaround has given Maria a huge amount of time back to focus on her day job where she plays an instrumental operational role managing reporting, the website, providing templates to teams and more. There have been times outside of the DDQs process where Maria has been able to leverage Robin AI to help her colleagues with information. Maria adds, “I might get a request from a colleague about language that we can use to answer a particular question, and I’m able to use Robin AI to answer those questions quickly.”

The optimised process has also saved her colleagues time across Finance, IT, Portfolio Management, and other teams as Maria can complete all routine answers to DDQs and avoid duplication of work. Maria notes, “there are, of course, situations where I will need to ask a colleague to supply information for a section, however in some cases I have been able to save other teams, like Finance, 60 minutes to 90 minutes when completing a DDQ.”

Another benefit of streamlining this process and the faster turnaround has meant that the GTIS team can deliver a better experience to investors and prospective investors, “being able to get DDQs done faster is better for our fundraisers” Maria outlines. By completing the DDQs in 1-3 days and working closely with the Compliance team, Maria comments that “the fundraisers can circle back to the potential investor much faster.”

Streamlined processes and improved efficiency

Leveraging AI-powered search capabilities through Robin AI’s software has seen a process transformed at GTIS, with the time it takes to complete a DDQ more than halved. Maria and her colleagues at GTIS have been able to spend more time focusing on their core responsibilities and have been able to provide a best-in-class experience to potential investors with fast and diligent turnaround of DDQs.

Robin AI has increased the efficiency of the DDQs process, made it simple to create a single source of truth, and removed some of the administrative burdens from Maria and the GTIS team.

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About Robin AI

Robin AI's software and managed services powered by AI are using by Private Markets Leaders across the world. We provide tools that help private equity firms, asset manager, hedge funds and more to cut costs, not corners with AI. Our AI-powered tools are used to transform DDQ processes, to make side letter management straightforward, and to accelerate the turnaround of NDAs and other contracts.

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Find out more about how Robin AI's software can be used to transform DDQ processes.