Top 10 Technology Trends for Advisors and Their Partners: Part 1, the Big Picture

There are some important technology trends that are making a major impact on the lives of financial advisors, broker-dealers and custodians. Ignored, and these trends have the potential to put you out of business. Embraced, and these trends can increase your revenue, profits, employee satisfaction and client satisfaction. In this, the first in a 12-part blog series, we will discuss each trend, what its short-term implications are, and what you need to consider over the long term. 

These trends vary in how far they’ve developed and in how far-reaching they can be. Some of them are impacting your business today and it’s likely that you are acting on them as I write. Others are issues and opportunities that might not yet be on your radar, but will likely impact your future. 

For example, crowd sourcing is an example of a trend you’ll likely need to deal with in the future. Most firms aren’t doing anything with crowd sourcing at the moment, but it is going to be increasingly important way in which firms accomplish tasks. On the other hand, a trend like mobility is, most likely, already impacting the way your firm works today. 

Depending upon the type of firm you have, and your role within it, some trends may be more relevant to you than others, and some might not affect you at all. Nevertheless, it’s important to understand the direction in which things are moving. Some of these macro trends might well be affecting your clients and other key stakeholders including advisors, shareholders, vendors, and others. Even though a technology trend might not impact your daily life, it’s important to remember that it may be dramatically changing the lives of others. 

Over the course of this series, we’ll discuss each of these 10 technology trends in depth: 

1. Increasing technology capability (bandwidth, storage, computing power)
2. Mobility
3. The integrated workstation
4. Integration
5. Workflow
6. Cloud-based computing
7. Outsourcing
8. Social media
9. Crowd sourcing
10. Big data