The Covid-19 pandemic transformed the wealth management sector and firms are looking to accelerate their digitalisation efforts to stay competitive. Wealth Dynamix has outlined an easy six step guide to support a firm’s digitalisation effort.
Wealth Dynamix’s whitepaper, Wealth Management Technology Beyond 2020, is the culmination of three roundtable discussions designed to discuss the state of the wealth management industry through the lens of the client, advisor and wider business. The group of wealth managers met in March, September and November 2020.
The whitepaper offers a deep insight into the wealth management sector as it tried to cope and adapt with the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of the key questions asked within the document is whether wealth managers do enough to stay ahead of client expectations. While another asks how advisors stay close to their clients to retain investment business.
The whitepaper is split into three key areas, exploring the client, business and advisor perspectives.
In its whitepaper, Wealth Dynamix also offers an easy six step roadmap that would help any firm empower the future advisor.
Step one is simply to define strategic goals. It states wealth management firms should be identifying how technology could improve the business and offering to clients. Part of this will include looking at the firm’s willingness to adapt or increase spend on implementing the best technology. Some of the other considerations will be exploring the impact of client journeys, how AUM will be affected and whether clients want new technology.
Once this has been documented and the firm has clear goals, they can move on to the next step – taking the pulse of the business.
No two firms will have the same starting point or even have the same destination. This means each firm has to evaluate their existing position, analyse what steps have already been made, and what ones worked well, the white paper claims.
Part of this will include accounting for challenges down the road, including the firm’s strengths and weaknesses. Wealth Dynamix claims it is best to be honest when mapping the model or it can impact the success. It said, “Firms that pay insufficient attention to steps 1 and 2 of this process tend to act in haste and live to regret the consequences.”
Step three in the roadmap is about understanding the technological limitations and opportunities. It is key for firms to have a clear understanding of what level of automation is needed to remove any instances of data silos. Wealth Dynamix also states firms need to start viewing the client lifecycle as a series of interconnected phases.
The fourth step is to conduct a metric-orientated value assessment. This means a wealth manager needs to map technology into processes, understand costs, evaluate savings, quantify client servicing benefits and construct business cases on realistic figures.
Wealth Dynamix’s penultimate step involves building a team that can execute on the platform. The company believes it is important to have staff that know best practice approaches and know the ins and outs of the systems.
Finally, the document states firms should then future-proof their firm. Implementing the technology will take time and it will vary for each firm, but once completed, the firm will be better positioned for the future and making additional changes down the line.
In the whitepaper, Wealth Dynamix managing director Antony Bream said, “While 2020 was the year that accelerated digitisation, we’ve seen that many firms, to their admission, used technology as something of a sticky plaster to plug the gaps remote working exposed in their business. And with widespread expectations of an industry wide drains up as normality resumes and the regulator evaluates business practices, it’s essential that firms ensure their houses are in order.
“Take a step back and review the sum of the parts of your business. Map the end-to-end client journey and see where technology can drive your business forward, evaluating existing innovations, processes and solutions to ensure they’re really fit for the job.”
Checkout the full whitepaper here.
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