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Practice Management > Building Your Business

Welcome to the New Planning Paradigm: Envestnet CEO Bill Crager

By John Manganaro

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What You Need to Know

  • Leaps in technology and profound shifts in individuals’ financial lives are driving change in the advisory industry.
  • Envestnet CEO Bill Crager says advisors must adapt and embrace new ways of doing business — or risk getting left behind.
  • Crager stressed the importance of integrating data, generating insights and leveraging smarter technologies to offer a seamless experience for clients.

Rapid changes in the global economy, the emergence of new technologies and the increasing complexity of individuals’ financial lives are the facts of life for financial advisors in 2023, and according to Envestnet CEO Bill Crager, these trends can be expected to only accelerate in the years ahead.

In fact, according to Crager, the pace of change and the intersection of so many cross-cutting global trends is rapidly ushering in a new era where traditional approaches to finance and wealth management will no longer suffice.

This new paradigm necessitates a shift in perspective, requiring financial advisors to adopt more comprehensive, integrated strategies, Crager argues. Those advisors who don’t get on board with the new way of doing business, he warned, are destined to fall behind their tech-enabled, future-embracing peers.

Crager made this case during the opening keynote session of Envestnet Summit 2023 — Elevate on Wednesday in Denver, speaking to an audience of more than 2,000 financial advisors and industry partners. During the presentation, Crager explored the concept of a holistic financial ecosystem that breaks down the silos in which money and financial advice have traditionally existed.

He argued that Envestnet, with its history of creating and embracing new technologies, is in the perfect position to help thousands of financial advisors thrive in what can otherwise seem to be a daunting environment — one in which clients will continue to demand “more and more and more” from their advisors.

Crager also delved into the importance of integrating data, generating insights and leveraging smarter technologies to offer a “seamless” financial management experience for clients. That’s the promise of what he referred to as an “intelligent financial life” powered by Envestnet’s current and emerging technologies.

Streamlined Experience

“For our industry, we are very clearly at a moment where we are undergoing a profound shift,” Crager said. “In physics, we once saw a shift from the simple world of Newton’s laws to an entirely new, far richer, more interconnected and more dynamic world of quantum physics. This is the same shift our industry is undergoing today.”

As Crager pointed out, the advisory industry has traditionally been built around important but well-divided silos. Any given individual client today could have relationships across 10 or more financial institutions, and there has historically been little connection or coordination among them.

According to Crager, that is all about to change.

“There is a clear need to help your clients see all of their money in one place, and that’s a problem that Envestnet can help you solve,” Crager said. “Our advisor-clients have told us that their clients are demanding a more unified and streamlined financial experience, and we are listening.”

Crager suggested that a host of platform enhancements being revealed during the Elevate conference can help advisors achieve this goal.

“It starts with data — by bringing data together, enriching it and creating actionable intelligence and insights to help you navigate all the growing complexity,” Crager said. “Some call it machine learning, some call it next-best action technology. Whatever you call it, that’s what we are now delivering for our advisors, and it’s a game-changer.”

Platform Updates

According to Crager, the Envestnet Wealth Data Platform is now able to intelligently consolidate data from a “very wide” set of sources, and this data powers the recently revealed Insights Engine.

“We can now help you pinpoint very specific and timely actions to help a client across their entire financial life,” Crager explained. “Maybe they have a tax-loss harvesting opportunity in a held-away account. Maybe a change in their overall financial situation makes a lifetime income solution more appealing. Whatever opportunities they have, we can help you identify them and take action.”

Crager said the Insights Engine is currently generating tens of millions of potential action items for advisor users on a daily basis, and that number is set to grow as more data sources are integrated into the solution.

“What is really exciting is that we are connecting all of this for you in one place and giving you a means to measure your business,” Crager said. “Our enhanced platform can give you automatic and actionable reporting about your most important key performance indicators. It’s a dashboard that is meant for you to use to guide each and every day for your business.”

Crager suggested that advisors who fully embrace the technology Envestnet offers today and will offer in the near future can expect to grow the size of their business by as much as 30% — without having to attract a single new client.

“That’s the strength of our belief in the insights we are generating today and the new way of doing business,” Crager said. “It shows how much more we can do for our existing clients by bringing their financial life into one seamless picture — let alone the opportunity to win new clients.”

On that front, Crager also pointed to a new service that can help advisors identify ideal prospective clients. The platform, he explained, is able to generate an individualized planning report that an advisor can carry into that first meeting.

“The growth potential is just really amazing when you take it all together,” Crager said.

Big New Partnerships

While much of Crager’s presentation was aspirational and forward-looking, he also took time to address some of the more concrete steps the firm has taken this year.

Several new partnerships and integrations are being unveiled at Elevate, he noted, including Envestnet’s new partnership with Goalsetter, which helps financial advisors provide tools that allow families to build generational wealth.

Building on its ongoing commitment to the retirement space, Envestnet also announced a new relationship with Empower, one of the largest retirement plan service providers, to integrate its technologies and asset management capabilities within the Envestnet ecosystem, expanding its distribution within the growing industry.

“This is the first time I’m talking about the theme of ‘retirement’ during the conference kickoff, and I think that’s really telling about the opportunities available in this space,” Crager noted.

Crager further pointed to iCapital’s integration with Envestnet that now allows advisors to add fee-based structured investments into proposals, transact on those products and assess them alongside more traditional asset classes — all without ever leaving the Envestnet ecosystem.

The last new partnership highlighted during Crager’s opening remarks is the pending integration of FNZ as a custodial option for advisors on the Envestnet platform.

“You might not know about FNZ today, because they are more of a global brand, but we are absolutely thrilled to be adding FNZ to our network of custodial options,” Crager said. “In essence, they are a global digital platform provider that has found a way to deliver wealth management solutions across 27 different countries — all at scale.”

Crager said the FNZ integration, which is set to be completed by the end of this year, will allow advisors to utilize what he called a “fully digital, real-time paperless administration and custody option.”

“With FNZ, you can go from prospect to portfolio in minutes,” Crager said. “It’s another game-changer.”

(Pictured: Envestnet CEO Bill Crager)

John Manganaro

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