http://desicritics.org/ Superior South Asian bloggers on Culture, Media, Politics, Sport, Business, and Technology. en Copyright 2006 by the authors Tue, 6 May 2008 03:01:21 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss BC custom software http://desicritics.org/2008/05/05/011423.php#comment-331374 Anand sahib thank you for the comments. I agree with the fact that portfolio management becomes IT focussed, but I always looked at it from the perspective of my spending, irrespective of where it was going. Secondly, I agree with the tool problem, the tool becomes a problem, more often than not, takes way too long, costs too much and doesnt really fulfil all what you need. So given a choice, go for excel for a quick start, once the org is nice and mature and understanding of such a disciplined process, THEN think of a tool. But I have to say that investments should be looked upon as a project. It provides discipline which frequently one doesnt see in terms of a life cycle. Besides the trading side (where the life is too small), most other investments can be managed as a project and should be, it sure as hell reduces risk... thanks for the reference, it goes into my TBR folder which is increasing geometrically while reducing arithmetically :( Cheers bd 331374@desicritics.org Tue, 6 May 2008 03:01:21 EDT http://desicritics.org/2008/05/05/011423.php#comment-331351 Dear Dr. Dasgupta, An excellent and detailed article on portfolio management. I think you've excellently laid out the premise and some of the pitfalls of portfolio management. I think the main issue is that portfolio management tends to be very IT-centric when it should be applied to all discretionary capital and operating expense categories, e.g., marketing, operations, R&D, innovation, IT, salesforce, etc. This is a huge missed opportunity. The other issue is that portfolio management has become a bit synonymous with project management which it is not. Project management is about doing projects right while portfolio management is doing the right projects. These are very different skills and so the people managing an organization's portfolio management effort should not be project managers. And lastly, another perennial issue is that portfolio management has become very tied to software applications as most people have forgotten that "a fool with a tool is still a fool." Portfolio management is about data integrity, modeling investments in a similar way and ensuring behavior is aligned with modifying resource allocation. Thanks for the informative post again. I hope we can continue the dialogue at some point in the future. I'd also recommend my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470126884?ie=UTF8&tag=kismatcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470126884">"Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management"</a> to you about this topic. (sorry for the shameless plug, but I do think you'll like it :) Regards, Anand Sanwal <a href="http://brilliont.com/blogs/id/">Investile Dysfunction Blog</a> 331351@desicritics.org Mon, 5 May 2008 19:03:23 EDT