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BlackRock Product

To help more people experience financial well-being by shaping the future of asset management through technology

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To help more people experience financial well-being by shaping the future of asset management through technology

Strengths

  • PLATFORM: Aladdin ecosystem with 55,000+ users across 50+ countries
  • SCALE: $10T+ AUM providing unmatched global market insights
  • DATA: Proprietary datasets from managing 3000+ investment vehicles
  • TALENT: World-class product and engineering teams (6000+ tech staff)
  • BRAND: Trusted partner for 70% of top 100 pension funds globally

Weaknesses

  • COMPLEXITY: Aladdin platform customization creates tech debt
  • INTEGRATION: Siloed product teams slow feature delivery cycles
  • AGILITY: Enterprise focus slowing innovation release cycles (9+ mos)
  • TALENT: 26% annual turnover in key product engineering roles
  • ADOPTION: New features see only 40% usage in first 6 months

Opportunities

  • DEMOCRATIZATION: Expand Aladdin to $5T retail investment market
  • AUTOMATION: AI-powered portfolio construction/optimization tools
  • EXPANSION: ESG analytics capturing 63% CAGR in sustainable investing
  • ECOSYSTEM: Open API economy to connect with 10,000+ fintechs
  • SAAS: Transition to cloud-native SaaS model for 3x ARR potential

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Fintechs capturing specific Aladdin use cases
  • REGULATION: Increasing data privacy/security demands (GDPR, CCPA)
  • TALENT: Tech giants offering 30%+ higher comp for AI specialists
  • DISRUPTION: Decentralized finance protocols threatening 12% of base
  • SECURITY: Increasing sophistication of cyberattacks targeting finance

Key Priorities

  • MODERNIZE: Accelerate cloud-native transition of Aladdin platform
  • INTEGRATE: Build unified API framework across all product lines
  • TALENT: Restructure product teams around customer journeys
  • INNOVATION: Launch AI-powered analytics and automation tools
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To help more people experience financial well-being by shaping the future of asset management through technology

CLOUD NATIVE

Transform Aladdin into fully cloud-native platform

  • MIGRATION: Complete migration of core portfolio analytics engine with 99.9% parity by Q3
  • ARCHITECTURE: Deliver microservices blueprint for all 8 core platform components by Q2 end
  • DEPLOYMENT: Achieve 65% reduction in deployment cycle time across all platform services
  • PERFORMANCE: Demonstrate 3x improvement in compute efficiency for high-volume operations
API ECOSYSTEM

Build seamless connectivity across all product lines

  • FRAMEWORK: Launch unified API gateway with standard authentication for all product APIs
  • DOCUMENTATION: Complete developer portal with self-service docs for 100% of public APIs
  • ADOPTION: Onboard 50 external partners to new API ecosystem, representing $750M in AUM
  • INTEGRATION: Reduce custom integration efforts by 40% through standardized connectors
AI FOUNDATION

Establish world-class AI capabilities across platform

  • PLATFORM: Deploy unified ML platform serving all product teams with shared models & data
  • MODELS: Launch 5 production AI models for portfolio optimization with measurable accuracy
  • TALENT: Establish AI Center of Excellence with 25 specialized engineers & data scientists
  • AUTOMATION: Implement AI-powered data workflows reducing manual processing by 65%
CLIENT JOURNEY

Reorganize product teams around customer experiences

  • STRUCTURE: Complete reorganization of product teams aligned to 6 core client journeys
  • METRICS: Implement unified client satisfaction measurement across all product touchpoints
  • EXPERIENCE: Achieve 25% improvement in client onboarding time through journey optimization
  • ADOPTION: Increase feature adoption rates from 40% to 75% through improved user experience
METRICS
  • ALADDIN REVENUE: 15% YoY growth reaching $1.8B annual run rate
  • NPS: Improve Net Promoter Score from 45 to 65 across all product lines
  • FEATURE ADOPTION: Increase new feature adoption rates from 40% to 75%
VALUES
  • Client-first: Every decision starts with the client's needs
  • Innovation: Constantly reinventing our platform and solutions
  • One BlackRock: Collaborative approach across all teams
  • Transparency: Clear and open communication with clients and teams
  • Excellence: Unwavering commitment to highest quality standards
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Align the learnings

BlackRock Product Retrospective

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To help more people experience financial well-being by shaping the future of asset management through technology

What Went Well

  • REVENUE: Aladdin platform revenue grew 12% YoY exceeding forecast by 2%
  • CLIENTS: Added 15 new enterprise Aladdin clients representing $500B+ AUM
  • RETENTION: Achieved 97% client retention rate across all product lines
  • ADOPTION: Aladdin for Wealth platform reached 1M financial advisors mark

Not So Well

  • DELIVERY: Three key platform upgrades missed target release dates by 8wks
  • PROJECTS: Innovation pipeline experienced 30% increase in delivery times
  • INTEGRATION: Post-acquisition product integration timelines extended by 6m
  • TALENT: Lost 15 senior product leaders to competitors in last two quarters

Learnings

  • PRIORITIZATION: Need clearer product roadmap aligned to client value metrics
  • TECHNOLOGY: Technical debt hampering ability to ship features with velocity
  • MEASUREMENT: Lack of unified product analytics slowing iterative improvement
  • COLLABORATION: Siloed team structure creating redundant product development

Action Items

  • UNIFICATION: Create unified product platform strategy across all divisions
  • MODERNIZATION: Accelerate cloud-native transition with dedicated resources
  • TALENT: Implement specialized AI talent acquisition and retention program
  • ANALYTICS: Deploy centralized product analytics platform by end of quarter
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To help more people experience financial well-being by shaping the future of asset management through technology

Strengths

  • DATA: Massive proprietary dataset spanning $10T+ in global assets
  • INFRASTRUCTURE: Robust cloud computing and data lake architecture
  • TALENT: 250+ data scientists and ML engineers across teams
  • RESEARCH: Partnership with 20+ academic institutions on AI research
  • FOUNDATION: Aladdin's systematic approach provides ideal AI foundation

Weaknesses

  • INTEGRATION: AI initiatives operate in silos across 12+ departments
  • TALENT: 35% talent gap in specialized AI engineering positions
  • ADOPTION: Only 25% of eligible processes leverage AI capabilities
  • GOVERNANCE: Inconsistent model validation and oversight processes
  • EXPERIMENTATION: Conservative approach limiting AI innovation pace

Opportunities

  • AUTOMATION: Reduce 70% of manual analysis in portfolio construction
  • PERSONALIZATION: AI-driven custom portfolio solutions at scale
  • UNSTRUCTURED: NLP to extract insights from millions of documents
  • FORECASTING: Enhanced predictive models for market volatility
  • EXECUTION: AI-optimized trading execution saving 12bps per trade

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Competing platforms launching AI-first investment tools
  • BIAS: Risk of algorithmic bias affecting investment recommendations
  • EXPLAINABILITY: Regulatory pressure for transparent AI decisions
  • TALENT: Tech giants outbidding by 40% for specialized AI talent
  • SECURITY: AI-powered attacks specifically targeting financial data

Key Priorities

  • PLATFORM: Build unified AI platform to serve all BlackRock products
  • TALENT: Develop specialized AI Center of Excellence team
  • PERSONALIZATION: Launch AI-powered portfolio personalization
  • AUTOMATION: Deploy ML for 80% reduction in routine analysis tasks