The world of outsourced investment research has been constantly evolving. With ongoing regulatory changes that are pushing for transparency, firms such as investment banks, independent research providers, brokerage firms, hedge funds and other financial institutions must look for strategic alternatives to stay competitive and compliant with norms. These firms are looking for smarter ways of managing operations even as they seek to accelerate their speed of response to market changes. So the challenge is to retain flexibility, improve analyst to coverage ratio but without a drop in quality and depth and achieve this cost effectively.