The Case for Technology Consolidation, Part Two: 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 extremely frustrating for advisors to have to fight with technology and poorly integrated workflows. These challenges often arise when advisors are confronted with siloed, legacy technology that’s been cobbled together over the years.

Traditionally, wealth management firms have attempted to meet increased demand for a broader universe of portfolio solutions by introducing new, less than ideally integrated technology platforms, each with different purposes, workflows and capabilities. These separate and inflexibly connected systems end up creating repetitive lists of tasks, stymieing growth and even eroding client trust when inconsistent data causes a confusing, frustrating experience.

A tech stack made up of disconnected parts and pieces can lead to errors and client dissatisfaction, ultimately affecting firms’ revenue and profitability, as advisors opt to work at organizations that invest in more robust, streamlined, modern and flexible technology.

When partnered with the right technology provider, home offices aren’t forcing their advisors to muscle through tedious workflows, deal with extra steps to try to manage the client experience, close and open accounts (losing history) as clients’ accounts grow in wealth and complexity, or endeavor to reconcile inconsistent or confusing classifications or data between tech platforms.

Advisors with the right technology benefit from consistent data, classifications and simplified workflows. They’re seamlessly able to navigate all types of portfolio solutions, evolving with their clients as they become wealthier, and their needs grow in complexity.

By consolidating the tech stack and working with a technology partner that understands advisors’ needs, wealth management firms are equipping their advisors to efficiently and effectively guide clients throughout the client lifecycle, meeting their financial needs in a forward-looking and proactive manner throughout the length of the relationship.

Advisors Are Tired of Disconnected Technology

Across the industry, more than half of all advisors point to disconnected technology as the single biggest pain point they experience. In fact, just 1 of every 10 advisors works with a technology platform where every system is connected and information flows seamlessly across the advisor dashboard.

Instead of waiting for vendors to integrate their systems or turning to yet another third party for assistance, advisors want a unified tech platform that eliminates long chains of fragile integrations. Advisors are ready for a system that acts as a data hub for their technology and critical client-facing workflows.

Advisors managing client portfolios across multiple tech platforms often see growth and productivity affected by:

• Client-facing reports that contain data inconsistencies or errors.

• Operational burdens and manual inefficiencies, which can appear when clients are allocating assets to more sophisticated investments.

• Unnecessary account openings and closings, especially as client goals evolve to necessitate more sophisticated portfolio solutions.

• The associated risk of losing historical performance data or client preferences.

• Errors arising from manual data entry or mismanaged investment tolerances and thresholds across multiple accounts.

• Poor client communication or failure to align client goals with their investments.

Consolidation Empowers Advisors and Showcases Foresight

Unifying disconnected technology not only shows wealth management firms’ understanding of the needs of their advisors, but it also empowers those advisors to extend more personalized advice and service to clients. A firm offering unified and streamlined technology will have more efficient advisors, equipped with the resources to meet client demands, likely with more time to focus on those client relationships.

By enabling advisors to provide a higher quality and more personal client experience, this creates a flywheel effect of growth across the firm, improves advisor and client retention and opens the door for capturing more client walletshare.

Streamlining a disparate, disjointed set of technologies into a unified platform creates significant value-adds for advisors and clients:

• Advisors can easily transition client assets into new investment strategies as goals and economic conditions change, thereby reducing burdensome account openings and closings.

• A unified platform helps advisors manage tax consequences—potentially generating valuable tax alpha—across multiple accounts in a more efficient and effective way.

• Unification ensures that client investing and tax preferences are documented in a single place, simplifying the process for advisors and reducing the opportunity for errors and inconsistencies.

• Reporting and billing is accurate and consistent and facilitates fee calculation at the household/relationship level, where applicable.

• Client communication is consistent, accurate, timely, streamlined, personalized and accessible.

Recognizing the importance of a flexible, scalable wealth management platform—one that supports advisors across all the services they offer and clients across all of the stages of wealth and complexity they might evolve to—Vestmark allows for a single, silo-free technology stack. We’ve seen firms accelerate their growth by consolidating disconnected tools and features and transitioning to a platform designed to eliminate gaps, streamline workflows and provide access to the resources advisors need.

Advisors work hard to provide their clients with the guidance and advice to build trust and achieve their goals. By consolidating the technology at your firm, you can eliminate workarounds, reduce errors, inconsistencies and delays, and provide an unparalleled advisor experience.