What are the largest hassles with the modeling process within Hedge Funds

Hi everyone,

I have been actively involved with a firm that sells a library of financial models to the buy side and more particularly, hedge funds.

The position I would hold within the firm would be a sales rep and for the last round of the interview process, I have been asked to sell the product.

They gave me little information regarding how they personally sell the product and I have been tasked with deriving this information on my own.

I came here to ask anyone who has been on the buy side how their modeling process works? From a lot of the information I have gathered, I have found that most of the analysts either build the models themselves, or re-work sell side models given to them through the banks. I have even seen that many hedge funds do not even emphasize models.

Now I believe the key selling point of this firm is that their library essentially saves time for the analysts as they can take the models and convert the key information to their desires, avoiding an entire "rework" process or starting from scratch. Also, they get consistency from the same company updating the models instead of many sell side companies who only model what their interests are at the time.

As people who work in the buy side, what are some of the biggest hassles regarding modeling and what solutions have you personally thought of to mitigate this? They do not have to be related to what my questions ask, but I want to know anything that you believe is inefficient.

Also, if there is any more information you feel might make my understanding of this topic more relevant, please share:)