Case Study: BlackRock achieves secure, auditable spreadsheet control and regulatory compliance with Mitratech

How ClusterSeven proved its benefits to BlackRock, one of the world’s pre-eminent asset management firms

BlackRock, a leading global asset manager, relied heavily on Excel for prototyping and running business‑critical processes, creating exposure to monetary, reputational and technology risk. Their objectives were to make spreadsheet use transparent, assign risk metrics, ensure secure, monitored use and meet regulatory requirements — all without imposing onerous controls on users. They needed a non‑invasive solution that could handle complex workbooks and VBA/version control while securing business buy‑in.

BlackRock piloted and deployed ClusterSeven ESM, a configurable, non‑invasive enterprise spreadsheet manager. The solution provided continuous backups on save, full version history, monitoring of access/protection/VBA changes, risk scoring to prioritize remediation, and coding‑best‑practice scans. Results included a successful global roll‑out, proactive error detection and faster remediation, smoother Excel upgrades and integrations, enhanced auditability to meet policy and regulatory requirements, and widespread user acceptance.

BlackRock

Stuart Symonds

Director Aladdin & Technology