Like most industries, the mutual fund industry undergoes periods of rapid change in order to keep pace with changing consumer behavior, respond to new government regulations or, to take advantage of technology developments. Much of the recent changes have been spurred by technology advancements that are driving changes in human behavior such as the increasing use of the Internet for receiving compliance information. This trend has in turn influenced regulators to propose rules in support of better investor communications. Specifically the SEC has proposed rules known as Notice & Access that stipulate ways to electronically deliver prospectuses and shareholder reports.

Other events that have shaped the modern-day mutual fund market include; the growth of IRA and 401(k) plans which have increased demand for more fund choice and, the globalization of financial markets. All have created new opportunities and additional competitive challenges for mutual fund executives.

As one of the first companies to address the compliance communication needs of the mutual fund industry, RR Donnelley's Global Investment Markets is the only provider with a comprehensive team specifically focused on the needs of the Securities Act of 1940. Our composition, production, delivery and results tracking offer the complete communications solution. From XBRL tagging to e-Delivery, whether domestically or internationally, GIM solutions address your needs today as well as in the future. That is why most of the leading mutual funds use GIM for all their '40 Act compliance needs.

Mutual Fund Company boosts investor satisfaction offering e-Delivery

A large mutual fund company began receiving customer requests to receive compliance documents electronically in place of print. Since RR Donnelley printed their documents, it was a natural extension of our services to implement our e-Delivery solution for them, integrating it seamlessly into their web site. Our knowledge of compliance law and the process of promoting and managing consent resulted in customer adoption rates for consent collection greater than double the industry average.

After six years, RR Donnelley continues to enhance the e-Delivery capabilities of this account with data management and additional forms of electronic communications. This demonstrates how RR Donnelley as a world-class printer with unprecedented resources has evolved to become a communications company with robust technology solutions that meet today's market needs.

Mutual Fund Company reduces preparation costs and cycle time with ProspectusBuilder

A large fund company, whose prospectus preparation involved twenty people working for six weeks on multiple documents with several content owners, needed to reduce their costs and cycle time. Their existing process created inconsistencies between documents that required manual coordination to review and approve changes. Then all changes were typeset by their printer, which meant a further round of reviews causing more delay and added expense.

RR Donnelley addressed these problems by introducing ProspectusBuilder one of our content management solutions, to streamline the prospectus preparation process. This web-based solution creates a controlled content repository to enable single-change updating of shared content across multiple documents. Users can also directly edit and immediately publish documents for print, e-Delivery and SEC filing without additional typesetting charges.

After using ProspectusBuilder, the fund company's analysis confirmed a reduction in cycle time to two weeks using just five people. They also noted an improvement in the quality and consistency of their documents as well as a reduction in the overall cost of composition.