Investment Operations Uplift for an Industry Super Fund

A leading Australian industry super fund engaged Desda Group in a multiphase consulting engagement to address persistent operational risks within its Investment function. The initial phase centred on mitigating key‑person risk by documenting critical business processes, operational workflows, and key decision points across unit pricing, performance and attribution, and APRA reporting. This established a stable operational foundation, improving continuity and enabling effective knowledge transfer.

Subsequent phases extended into governance by mapping the cross‑departmental processes and controls that guide how fee changes and product disclosure updates are assessed, approved, and delivered to members. The strengthened operational baseline and clearer process architecture then enabled further work to uplift the fund's compliance with APRA CPS 230. This included developing enhanced risk and compliance frameworks, updating and creating policies and procedures, and embedding more robust governance practices aligned to operational risk and resilience obligations.

Collectively, the multiphase engagement reduced institutional knowledge risk, clarified accountabilities, and delivered the governance and compliance structures needed to manage member‑impacting changes with confidence while meeting emerging regulatory expectations.

Consecutive engagements

Core process domains documented

Departments aligned via RACI

The Challenge

The fund's Investment team operated efficiently day-to-day — but almost entirely through institutional knowledge and manual spreadsheet workflows. Daily unit pricing required a carefully sequenced set of steps across multiple data inputs: cashflows from the registry administrator, a unit price pack from the custodian, rebalancing decisions, cash sweeps, and reconciliation checks against tolerance thresholds. Performance & attribution followed a similarly complex monthly cycle involving external benchmark data, internal workbooks, APRA reporting obligations, and Investment Committee dashboards. None of these processes were formally documented. Knowledge lived with individuals, and there was no onboarding material for new starters.

The second challenge was structural. When the fund needed to make a change — revising an external manager fee, updating investment options, or issuing a Significant Event Notice — the path from decision to disclosure was poorly defined. Finance, Investments, and Product operated largely in silos when it came to member-impacting changes. Decision inputs, approval gates, and handoffs between departments were ad hoc. The Product Disclosure Statement review and approval process lacked a formal procedure, creating both compliance risk and operational friction when changes were required.

Processes in Scope

Unit Pricing — daily valuation, cash sweep, rebalancing, reconciliation
Performance & Attribution — monthly reporting cycle, APRA obligations, Investment Committee dashboards
External Manager Fees — base fees, performance fees, transaction costs, indirect charges
Disclosure Document governance — PDS, SENs, TMDs, and the Due Diligence Committee review process
Asset Allocation
Liquidity Management & Monitoring
APRA SRS 551 Liquidity Management reporting

The Approach

Desda deployed a structured, interview-led approach for each engagement — working directly with the Investment, Investment Operations, Finance, Product and Risk and Compliance teams to surface, document, and validate processes at the activity level, then building governance frameworks from the ground up.

Process Discovery

Conducted structured workshops with multiple teams to map end-to-end processes across unit pricing, rebalancing, performance & attribution, and APRA reporting. Each process was documented at the activity level — including responsible party, frequency, timing, data inputs, and known exceptions — producing a detailed Process Inventory in parallel with high-level Process Maps.

SIPOC Mapping — Investment Fees

Ran facilitated SIPOC workshops across all investment fee categories: manager base fees, manager performance fees, transaction costs (buy/sell spread), and indirect charges including custodian and asset consultant fees. Each SIPOC captured suppliers, inputs, process steps, outputs, and customers — giving Finance, Investments, and Product a shared reference point for fee-related workflows.

RACI Development

Built a RACI matrix covering the full decision-to-disclosure lifecycle for product and pricing changes — mapping responsibilities across Investments, Finance, Product, and Legal & Compliance. The RACI addressed both the investment decision layer (who inputs into fee changes) and the product governance layer (who owns, reviews, and signs off disclosure documents).

Investment and Investment Operational Procedures

Drafted a formal Investment and Investment Operational Procedures document establishing a repeatable internal governance process for PDSs, SENs, TMDs, and other regulated member communications. The procedures defined two review types (Full Review and Limited Review), the role of the Due Diligence Committee, stakeholder responsibilities, and the approval and sign-off workflow — designed to reduce document maintenance overhead and accommodate staff changes over time.

Risk & Recommendations

Identified process and control risks across both engagements and provided targeted recommendations — covering documentation gaps, manual process dependencies, governance deficiencies, and areas of regulatory exposure. Findings were delivered through a structured report and reviewed in weekly status updates throughout each engagement.

The Outcome

Desda engagements were delivered on schedule and left the fund with a materially stronger operational baseline across its Investment, Investment Operations, Product and Finance departments. The process documentation suite covered the full daily unit pricing lifecycle — from cashflow inputs and custodian price packs through to reconciliation, rebalancing decisions, and publication — as well as the monthly performance & attribution cycle and all key APRA reporting workflows. Frameworks and policies were documented (new) or amended (existing) aligning strategy, frameworks, policies, processes and procedures.

The SIPOC matrices gave the fund's Finance, Investments, Investment Operations, and Product teams a shared vocabulary and reference structure for investment fee management — one that could support future fee reviews, mandate negotiations, and regulatory reporting. The RACI resolved longstanding ambiguity about who owned what in the product change process and investment decisions. The Disclosure Document procedures gave the Due Diligence Committee and its stakeholders a repeatable, auditable framework for managing PDS and SEN reviews going forward.

Deliverables Across Both Engagements

Process Inventory — activity-level documentation across unit pricing, P&A, and APRA reporting
Process Maps — high-level flow charts across all in-scope investment workflows
SIPOC matrices — covering all four investment fee categories
RACI matrix — roles and responsibilities across Finance, Investments, Product, and Legal & Compliance
Investment and Investment Operational Procedures — formal governance framework for PDSs, SENs, and TMDs
Operational Risk & Liquidity Frameworks and Policies — new and revised

What Was Achieved

Key-person risk substantially reduced through complete documentation of daily and monthly investment processes.
New starter onboarding supported by structured, activity-level process guides.
Cross-departmental ambiguity resolved — RACI established clear ownership across the product change lifecycle.
Processes and procedures documented and transitioned to BAU.
All tools and templates designed to be owned and maintained by the fund's team going forward.
APRA compliance strengthened through targeted uplift aligned to CPS 230 operational risk and resilience obligations.

Why Desda

Investment operations work of this kind demands more than process mapping experience — it requires deep familiarity with how Australian super funds manage unit pricing, custodian relationships, APRA reporting, and disclosure obligations. Desda brought hands-on expertise across all of these domains, enabling the consulting team to engage substantively with the Investment department from day one, ask the right questions, and produce documentation that was technically accurate, operationally useful, and built to last.