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January 19, 2018 at 08:58 AM
The business model of today’s wealth advisor is under fire. Technology entering the market imposes new threats, and changing regulations are shifting the focus of advisors off their clients. How will advisors find the time to address these changes internally and properly communicate them to their clients? The answer lies in automating back-office processes, which frees up time, increases efficiencies and enables advisors to offload non-revenue-generating workflows.
Would you trust an advisor who is standing still right now — not preparing her business for impending regulations, cyber threats and technological advancements — to manage your money? Advisors know change is coming. Eighty-three percent of asset management professionals surveyed by Confluence believe there will be at least one factor that drives change within their organizations. Some of those challenges include improving back-office processes, managing regulatory reporting requirements, centralizing fund data and reducing reliance on manual processes. All of these can be solved by technology.
With an increased focus on client service becoming even more necessary, here are four reasons why you need to automate your back-office processes:
1. You’ll improve data access.
As today’s advisors continue to modernize, they’ll often use several technologies, which include in-house solutions as well as vendors, to manage different elements of their business. Whether it be a CRM, document management tools, a wealth management system or an office suite, these disparate systems can make data harder to access, as many of these technologies don’t integrate natively. As new demands come from both regulators and clients, advisors are going to need to increase their flexibility.
The growing sophistication of the advisory business is rendering certain functions too difficult or tedious for them to tackle with the current models in place. Leveraging technology that connects the middle and back office and centralizes access to data enables seamless reporting and increases vendor and platform flexibility.
2. You’ll save time.
An advisor’s most precious commodity is time, and that time is, in many cases, being wasted on manual processes for tasks that can be automated. Instead, that time can be spent meeting new prospects, improving relationships with existing clients, researching investment opportunities and strategies, and enabling seamless access to client data to further demonstrate an advisor’s value. Technological advances like robo-advisors are here to stay, and advisors are being challenged to differentiate themselves and prove their worth.
