Why Efficient Investment Operations Are Not Always Resilient

Investment managers have spent years focused on operating efficiency, streamlining workflows, containing costs, and asking teams to do more with less. But in 2026, efficiency alone is not enough.

An operating model can perform well under normal conditions while still struggling to absorb a volume spike, technology outage, loss of a key employee, or an increase in complex exceptions. For COOs and investment operations leaders, the question is shifting from “How efficiently can we operate?” to “Can our operating model maintain control and client service when conditions change?”

ACA’s 2026 survey of approximately 185 investment operations leaders explores how firms are navigating that challenge. The findings suggest that firms are prioritizing more resilient, technology-enabled operating models that can support growth without compromising control or client service.

Lean Does Not Always Mean Resilient

The survey found that 86% of respondents described their operating model as either efficient with limited buffer capacity or lean with little room for disruption. Yet only 22% said they were very confident their organization could absorb a significant operational shock.

That gap between day-to-day efficiency and confidence in managing disruption matters. Lean teams and tightly managed processes may work effectively in steady-state conditions, but pressure can build quickly when a critical system fails, volumes rise unexpectedly, or a key individual is unavailable.

For COOs, resilience should be assessed directly, rather than assumed based on day-to-day performance. Operational stress testing, capacity planning, and dependency mapping can help firms understand where a disruption could affect turnaround times, controls, client service, or backlogs.

Exceptions May Be the Real Capacity Constraint

Growth is often viewed as the primary operational challenge. However, the survey suggests that exceptions and nonstandard workflows may create greater operational strain.

Handling exceptions was the most frequently cited source of operational pressure among respondents, ahead of scaling with growth, data management, cross-team coordination, and regulatory requirements.

The distinction is important because operational pressure is not always a capacity problem. Adding headcount may relieve pressure in the short term, but it does not necessarily resolve the underlying process issues that repeatedly create manual work, investigation, escalation, and rework.

Firms that make exceptions visible by tracking their source, owner, resolution time, and recurrence are better positioned to identify where process redesign, technology changes, or automation could have the greatest impact.

Legacy Technology Can Limit Automation Progress

Automation remains a major priority across investment operations, but technology foundations often determine what firms can realistically achieve.

In ACA’s survey, legacy systems were the most frequently cited barrier to accelerating automation. The findings indicate that the challenge is not simply identifying automation opportunities. Firms must also ensure that their underlying systems, integrations, data, and control environment can support automation sustainably.

Without a clear technology remediation plan, firms may continue to layer workarounds onto aging infrastructure, creating more complexity and manual control dependencies rather than reducing them.

A more sustainable approach begins with identifying the systems and dependencies that create the greatest operational friction, then sequencing modernization efforts around the target operating model and its resilience requirements.

AI Is Advancing, but Most Firms Remain Early in the Journey

Interest in AI and advanced automation is growing but use in core operational workflows remains limited. Only 5% of respondents reported that AI or advanced automation is actively embedded in their core workflows.

Most firms are still exploring use cases, piloting limited applications, or working through the governance requirements needed for responsible implementation.

For COOs, a practical next step may be to identify a well-defined use case with clear business value, appropriate controls, defined ownership, and measurable outcomes. That deployment can then help establish a repeatable governance model.

Third-Party Oversight Is Becoming an Operating-Model Priority

As firms look for specialist capabilities, capacity, and scalability, third-party reliance is expected to grow. Nearly half of respondents expect their use of third-party providers to increase.

Greater reliance on external providers changes the COO’s role. Outsourcing does not remove accountability for service quality, controls, resilience, or client outcomes. Instead, it increases the importance of provider governance, performance monitoring, escalation procedures, and planning for concentration risk. Treating third-party oversight as an ongoing operational discipline, rather than solely a procurement activity, can help firms maintain control as their delivery model becomes more distributed.

Build Resilience by Design

The defining operating-model question for 2026 is not how much more work a firm can process through its current structure. It is whether that structure can manage complexity, absorb disruption, and adopt new capabilities without weakening controls or service.

For COOs and investment operations leaders, that means looking beyond isolated efficiency initiatives and considering how people, processes, technology, data, and third-party relationships work together to support resilient operations.