December 16, 2025
In the highly competitive global investment landscape, innovation is crucial for delivering long-term, sustainable value to our clients. This is why accelerating innovation is one of three strategic ambitions guiding BCI through fiscal 2025 to 2027.
Two recent industry awards from Info-Tech Research Group, for being an Innovator of the Year 2025, and CIO Awards Canada 2025, for using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, recognize this approach and reflect more than just technical achievements at BCI. They showcase how we’re building the capabilities and culture needed to compete as a world-class asset manager.
Why innovation matters to BCI
The investment environment is ever-changing, and to keep pace, BCI is adopting the latest technology to automate complex analysis, create scalable processes, and mitigate risks associated with manual workflows. Artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics have become essential tools for maintaining competitive advantage while growing operational efficiency on a global scale.
For BCI, innovation creates three critical advantages: it optimizes how our talent works, enhances decision-making capabilities, and maintains the agility needed to navigate changing markets successfully.
“Innovation is fundamental to how we operate as a global asset manager and deliver sustainable value for our clients,” said Shauna Lukaitis, Chief Operating Officer. “These awards recognize something essential about our approach – we’re building differentiated capabilities in-house. What’s most meaningful is seeing our teams embrace an innovation mindset and challenging how we’ve traditionally operated. This internal capability building is critical to executing our strategic ambitions and maintaining the agility required to navigate increasing complexity”.
Building a culture of experimentation
Innovation requires more than adopting new systems. It requires cultural transformation. We’ve focused on empowering employees across all business functions to experiment, take measured risks, and challenge existing processes.
This shift began with our inaugural Innovation Challenge in early 2024, which invited employees to reimagine how BCI operates. Strong employee uptake transformed this initiative into a structured innovation ecosystem, including an internal idea platform and training programs to build capabilities across the organization.
The Info-Tech Research Group’s Innovator of the Year 2025 recognition acknowledges this transformation. It reflects a sustained commitment to embedding innovation into BCI’s operating model, highlighting how we create and execute solutions internally. This same philosophy guided our transformation into an active, in-house global asset manager more than a decade ago.
From concept to impact: AI-powered invoice processing
The CIO Awards Canada 2025 recognition demonstrates how cultural ambition translates into practical results. Our Technology and Finance teams developed an AI-powered invoice processing system entirely in-house, applying a build-versus-buy approach.
Previously, BCI processed hundreds of invoices weekly through manual workflows that were time-consuming and prone to error. The new platform automates the full invoice lifecycle — from receipt through approval and reconciliation — using machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.
The outcomes demonstrate clear value: processing time is significantly reduced without sacrificing accuracy, the system continuously improves through machine learning, and a mobile interface supports our global operations by enabling approvers to review invoices from anywhere.
Building capabilities for sustainable growth
These awards reflect collaborative efforts across BCI to find new ways to deliver value while building capabilities that will serve BCI for years to come. As we continue to execute our fiscal 2025-2027 strategic ambitions, innovation remains central to how we compete globally and deliver sustainable growth for our clients.
Discover how we’re delivering on our ambitions in our F2025 Annual Report.
