Cambridge to Make Advisor Tech 'Cloud Native'
The 3,500-advisor BD is working toward "a limited demo for review" later this year, said one executive.
Cambridge Investment Research announced today it will be implementing cloud-native technology from INVENT.us to redesign its CLIC digital business environment for independent advisors.
Two key benefits of CLIC Reimagined should be:
- Seamless data integrations between applications for financial planning, CRM, trading and client reporting while integrating more directly into Cambridge’s core systems, and
- A redesigned user interface that has simplified navigation, reduced clicks and eliminates redundant data entry.
“CLIC Reimagined will provide Cambridge’s 3,500 independent financial professionals with a flexible, customizable and powerful fintech business environment built on the latest cloud-native technologies to support the many different business segmentations we serve,” said Cambridge’s Chief Fiduciary Officer Colleen Bell, in a statement.
(Over the past few decades, operating systems moved from DOS to Windows and then on to the cloud, or Internet. Cloud native, the latest development, refers to apps driving business and data processing being deployed inside a cloud systems’ architecture.)
Cambridge is working toward a “limited demo for review” later this year, said Nick Graham, Cambridge EVP and chief technology officer, added notes that the broker-dealer expects “a more robust and comprehensive digital experience” for its affiliated advisors by the second half of 2021.
Training will be done in phases, he said, and will be “relevant to how a financial professional will use the tools and data in their businesses,” Graham added.
Its new operating system will synchronize data from multiple sources for front- to back-office applications.
In September, Cambridge was voted 2020 Broker-Dealer of the Year in its category by its advisors.
During a recent online discussion with other winners of the 2020 Broker-Dealer of the Year, an honor given by Investment Advisor magazine, Cambridge CEO Amy Webber said the firm made a decision about a year to 18 months ago to “build an entire digital transformation plan for the next five years.
“Within about 24 hours of the start to [the pandemic] we realized that five years was not going to work. We needed a complete digital transformation, or many of the components of it anyway, in probably 18 months to two years, and we made many of them very quickly,” she said. “The good news for us is that we were a little bit ahead of the curve.”
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