In Latest Reorg, ADP Sets Sights On Institutional Biz

Effective July 1, Jim Lascelles joins ADP from Bridge Information Systems Inc. and Bob Barsky from Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. The two will play key roles in a newly reorganized structure of ADP Brokerage Information Service Groups' Financial Information Services unit.

Among the goals of the reorganization is to focus the vendor's aim at the institutional markets. It is also meant to position ADP to pursue opportunities in the derivatives data market -- for which the vendor is now considering a number of new products.

"Given our growth over the last five years," says BISG FIS' president Ralph Koehrer, "we are focusing on the important barriers and consequently have organized into four lines of business -- national, retail brokerage, institutional and international -- to be supported by our Mount Laurel, [N.J.] infrastructure."

ADP provides most of the market data used by retail brokerage firms, both national and -- to a lesser extent -- regional. APD rival ILX, with its still relatively small installed base, and Quotron with its handful of regional customers, share most of the rest.

"The four groups are self-contained teams," Koehrer adds. To form the teams, salespeople and client support staff are joined by trainers and project managers to handle rollouts, and software developers to do custom work.

Lascelles will head a team devoted to expanding ADP's share of the institutional market, both on the buy and sell sides. Lascelles was president of the now-defunct Pont Data Inc. until it went out of business (IMD, Feb 3, 1992), after which he moved to Bridge to become vice president in charge of that vendor's Latin American efforts (IMD, May 11, 1992).

ADP's core retail brokerage business was split in two by the reshuffle: national accounts and retail brokerage. The former is devoted to keeping ADP's four biggest customers content; the latter will handle regional brokerage firms of all sizes.

Led by senior vice president Ralph Winnicker, the retail brokerage group is tasked with increasing market share and wringing incremental revenue out of existing customers.

The national accounts team will be headed by Wayne Mickiewicz, who leaves his post as ADP's vice president for product development to become senior vice president for national accounts. That team will manage Merrill Lynch & Co., Smith Barney/Shearson, Prudential Securities Inc. and Kidder Peabody & Co.

As part of the same reorganization, ADP has formed a strategic architecture group, to be headed by ADP vice president Len Hoerst. Hoerst and his team are charged with designing a successor to ADP's FS Partner and host systems.

ADP vice president Andy Valenti assumes the mantle of strategic initiatives, and will be responsible for developing new business opportunities both domestically and overseas.

Barsky becomes chief operating officer for ADP's domestic business, taking over duties from Dick Zeitlin. Barsky managed ADP's rollout to Merrill Lynch & Co. while working for Merrill, and more recently consulted to Smith Barney on its FS Partner installation (IMD, March 15).

Under Barsky, ADP is planning to overhaul its central systems during its fiscal year 1994, which began on July 1 of this year.

Following a transition period during which Zeitlin and Barsky will collaborate on infrastructure, Zeitlin will manage the integration of ADP's domestic business with international, which was boosted recently by ADP's acquisition of Quotron's international unit (IMD, Jan. 18).

That unit will be run by Phil Griffiths out of London. Griffiths is a five-year ADP veteran, but a newcomer to the brokerage services group. His time at ADP was spent in Automotive Collection Services (ACS).