PROs | Technology Thought Leadership

Technology Makes Life Easier

Is Your Equity Compensation Platform Keeping Pace?

In a world where technology advances exponentially businesses committed to increasing agility, speed and cost savings need to keep pace. So, what’s going on with most equity compensation providers?

Consider Your Own Equity Platform Experience

Do the tools you use today look any different than those of three years ago?

What about the overall employee experience—has it noticeably improved, and do they have access to virtual and in-person advice to make the most of their benefit?

Has your provider introduced new enhancements or features that excite you and make your job easier?

If You Answered No to Any of the Above You Can Do Better

An Easier Life

At this point in the 21st century, the products you use should always be getting better—and, ideally, making your life and job easier in some way. From an equity compensation perspective, this means automated processes, streamlined work efforts, more robust reports and the ability to free up your time, so you can focus on other priorities.

What Does This Look Like in Practice?

Think automated data exchange, which allows you to transfer data seamlessly to both internal and external stakeholders—from HR providers to transfer agents. Or real-time functionality, when the data you input in your platform is immediately reflected in your enterprise system.

An Unparalleled Commitment to Automation

A Long-Game Technology Strategy

A Modern Approach to Equity

The thing is, when you’re accustomed to one experience, you may not even know what else is possible. Manual processes and frequent glitches don’t have to define your day-to-day.

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Sandboxing: Another Tool in Your Toolbelt

Today, the technology exists to help you test various financial reporting, administrative and processing scenarios before moving them to full production—something known as “sandboxing”. So if you were to issue a restricted stock release, for example, sandboxing would allow you to see all the data up front and test it before going live, which, in turn, reduces risk and errors. Here’s the problem: Most providers don’t have the technology to offer this feature, which is holding their users back. The good news is, this technology is available and more cost-effective than you might think.

Technology advancements are improving every aspect of life and business—equity compensation included. Here are a few things you should now expect from your equity compensation provider:

An Unparalleled Commitment to Automation

To coordinate and share the necessary data with both your internal and external stakeholders—including HR, payroll, transfer agents, tax processors and others—you need the ability to transfer that information accurately. And when you’re reporting financials and determining how executives are taxed, you need to process the information quickly.

This Is Where Automation Comes in to Help Simplify the Process

To understand the value automation brings to administrative workflows, imagine you’re processing restricted stock for a large-scale release—say, 100,000 records. Traditionally, someone would have to manually trigger the shares to be released, request the shares from a transfer agent, send a request to payroll to process it, make sure the correct number of shares is withheld and delivered, and then send the right number of shares to each participant’s account.

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A Long-Game Technology Strategy

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Too often, equity compensation providers take a reactive approach to technology investment. Their tools are outdated, and they’ve waited too long to improve upon them, that they’re constantly playing catch-up. They may invest in a new feature to fix an existing bug, but because these investments are few and far between, new bugs emerge in the meantime.

Similarly, many of the original platform foundations are too outdated to keep up with modern demands, so even with new enhancements they don’t run as efficiently as they should, if they end up working at all. In some cases, the cost of updating an old system is so significant that providers have to triage their investment dollars—so rather than strengthening the administrative function or reducing risk, they invest in the next “shiny thing,” which has little functional value.

This piecemeal approach to technology investment ends up negatively impacting the end user. You may benefit from a patch to a particular work type, but it falls short of providing a truly streamlined, automated experience.

To avoid these issues, it’s important to find an equity compensation provider that recognizes the role technology plays in this space and takes a proactive approach to managing its inevitable evolution. Specifically, this provider should be able to tell you about its long-term technology investment strategy, share its product roadmap and, ideally, communicate how it plans to leverage technology to address all user needs, whether they’re in the private or public market space, in transition, or operating on multiple exchanges.

A Modern Approach to Equity

At Morgan Stanley at Work, we firmly believe that technology is the cornerstone of an effective equity compensation platform, which is why we’ve taken great strides to make sure our solutions are the most advanced in the business. Over the years, we’ve made continuous and consistent investments in our technology, products, and platforms which allows us to offer some of the industry’s most flexible, automated and agile equity solutions. What’s more, we have no plans to slow down. We have a robust product roadmap outlining our future technology priorities, as well as some of the product launches and enhancements we plan to roll out in the coming years.

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Get Started

To learn more about how Morgan Stanley at Work is helping administrators focus on more value-added tasks while providing the best employee experience possible, feel free to contact us.

This material has been prepared for informational purposes only. It is not an offer to buy or sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell any security or other financial instrument or to participate in any trading strategy. This material does not provide individually tailored investment advice and has been prepared without regard to the individual financial circumstances and objectives of persons who receive it. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources considered to be reliable. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC does not guarantee their accuracy or completeness. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”), its affiliates and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors or Private Wealth Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Clients should consult their tax advisor for matters involving taxation and tax planning and their attorney for legal matters. © 2022 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC. CRC 4692677-5/22

This type of seamless integration makes a difference. Without it, a lot of data gets routed to different parties, opening the door to error. Things get missed, double-counted, reported twice—and when that happens over and over, it can create unnecessary, and potentially costly, work for you and your partners.

With today’s technology, it’s possible to automate the entire process in that exact order—and complete it significantly faster than manually processing releases. Shares can appear immediately in employee accounts upon the restricted release file execution—and they can be sellable right away, without waiting for the transfer agent.

A Modern Approach to Equity

A Long-Game Technology Strategy

An Unparalleled Commitment to Automation

An Easier Life

A Modern Approach to Equity

A Long-Game Technology Strategy

An Unparalleled Commitment to Automation

An Easier Life