The Case for Wealth Management Platform Consolidation
Consolidating wealth management platforms that support your managed account programs – whether or not you streamline and consolidate those programs – creates benefits for your advisors, their clients, and your firm.
Everything starts with the client, and by improving the client experience, benefits flow to the advisor and the firm from there. But consolidating your wealth management platform creates additional advantages for advisors and for firms who are trying to recruit and retain them.
Improving the Client Experience by Eliminating Software Silos
By consolidating and updating siloed, legacy technology, it’s possible to create a smoother, more nimble client experience. Consolidating a firm’s managed account technology into a unified platform with the right provider has several benefits to the overall client experience. This ultimately builds trust and loyalty and leads to client retention, greater share of wallet and also attracting new assets over time.
Streamline the client experience across the advice chain
Clients’ portfolios are easily transitioned between investment solutions as wealth grows, investment goals change, or the client’s tax, risk or other personalization expectations grow, without an advisor needing to close and open accounts to make adjustments.
Enable advisors to provide more personalized advice
Unifying disconnected technology not only shows wealth management firms’ understanding of the needs of their advisors, but it also empowers advisors to provide more personalized advice to their clients. A firm offering unified and streamlined technology will have more efficient advisors, equipped with the resources to meet client demands, with more time to focus on personalizing those client relationships.
The Power of Tech Unification to Increase Advisor Satisfaction
With so much attention and focus on creating a very personal experience for their clients, it can be frustrating for advisors to fight with technology and poorly integrated workflows. These challenges often arise when advisors are confronted with siloed, legacy technology. A disconnected tech stack can lead to errors and client dissatisfaction, ultimately affecting firms’ revenue and profitability, as advisors opt to work at organizations that invest in streamlined, modern and flexible technology.
Consolidation empowers advisors and showcases foresight
Unifying disconnected technology not only shows wealth management firms’ understanding of advisor needs, but it also empowers those advisors to extend more personalized advice and service to clients. A firm offering consolidated and streamlined technology will have more efficient advisors, equipped with the resources to meet client expectations, likely with more time to focus on those relationships.
Exceeding Expectations with Tech Platform Unification
Client expectations for highly personal experiences, more services from their advisors and the evolution of sophisticated portfolio solutions as wealth grows and goals become more complex, are raising advisors’ expectations for more efficient and streamlined workflows, powerful features and advanced tools. But in the rush to provide advisors with the latest and greatest, implementation has not always been synonymous with full integration. Prudent leaders have been working with technology partners that are equipped to help build connections, encourage client engagement and generate new business, by deploying solutions that are unified and cohesive from the outset.
Boost growth and reduce expenses
By creating a better advisor experience, wealth management executives are seeing the "payback" in advisor recruitment and retention. Demonstrating that they take these issues seriously and want to build an environment that streamlines workflows and gives advisors the time and resources to strengthen client relationships creates an attractive place for advisors to build a business and serve clients.
Put simply, revenue retention and growth depend, in part, on investments in technology, as well as providing advisors with the features and functionality they need to flexibly meet client demands. Not only does tech unification address the challenge of attracting and retaining the most talented and productive advisors, it can also help firms boost their profitability and growth. This tech standardization also reduces operational inefficiencies and can even eliminate the need to reconcile multiple systems, which act as an additional drag on productivity and profitability.
