Corporate treasurers measuring the performance of their investment managers can rely on managers' self-evaluations–rife with conflict–or collect and reconcile the investment-related data themselves to measure against standard benchmarks.

The latter option is a lot of work. So Clearwater Analytics, prompted by its longtime customer Cisco Systems, significantly upgraded its operating fund analytics technology this year to provide customers with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to monitor their asset managers. Since the technology giant's managers each used their own benchmarks and metrics to report their performances, Cisco's treasury staff was uncomfortable comparing them.

"Cisco wanted a standard measurement stick for performance that included a selection of several indices," says Courtlandt Gates, CEO of Clearwater.