"Joined-up technology can provide a great boost to business efficiency, enabling advisers to do more of what is most valued by their clients"
While quality of service has always been an important differentiator within the advice profession, these days technology is just as likely to create significant distinctions between firms.
Yet while it’s widely accepted that technology is key to delivering advice today, complaints remain about lack of integration between systems, with having to repeatedly enter the same data on different systems a particular headache, as we like to call it ‘the swivel chair effect’.
Our 2024 market-wide intelliflo advice efficiency survey investigated how well today’s advice processes are working. It has highlighted that overreliance on manual processes and a lack of integration and digitalisation are creating unnecessary errors and extra work for advice professionals. A staggering 94% of advisers believe their advice journeys could be more efficient, while more than one in five would like to do away with all manual processes. A sobering statistic is that the average time devoted to implementing financial plans is 45 working days a year – and 11% of firms spend more than five hours implementing each plan.
Looking at these survey responses, there’s no doubt in my mind that firms can make significant efficiency gains by harnessing technology more effectively and will enjoy a distinct competitive advantage as a result. Joined-up technology can provide a great boost to business efficiency, enabling advisers to do more of what is most valued by their clients: building deeper relationships, extending services to family members, and being available to reassure during turbulent markets. Moreover, there’s potential to serve more clients when advice journeys are more time-efficient.
The question then is, what tech will genuinely deliver enhanced business efficiency, and free up advice professionals to focus on what they do best?
Getting the basics right
The sheer range of tech available can make it hard to know where to start when designing a tech stack. Firms want to choose best-of-breed tools, but selecting software in isolation can result in a group of disparate tools that add friction to your processes, rather than an integrated ecosystem that streamlines the advice journey.
Your practice management system is likely to be the most important tool within your technology stack and should sit at the heart of your advice processes, with everything else flowing from it. Choosing the right system – and understanding how to get the best out of it – is therefore worth investing time in. Simply by making the most of the functionality of your core software, you can create significant efficiency gains.
With the right practice management system in place, all your other systems can plug in to create more efficient straight-through processes. Integrating systems so that data flows either one way or in both directions, allows for greater automation of tasks and removes the burden of routine admin, streamlining data entry, freeing up valuable time and reducing risk and error.
A fully joined-up ecosystem centred around the right practice management system also creates a ‘single source of truth’ for data passing between systems. This provides valuable reassurance when sharing data throughout the advice process and across the entire tech ecosystem, including to client-facing tools such as portals, cashflow modelling software and risk profiling solutions.
The compound effect on costs, time and resources of truly integrated systems can be a game-changer, especially when margins are under pressure from changing regulatory requirements. Consumer Duty has added yet more heft to the already persuasive case for using a good practice management system. Your firm’s ability to meet the requirements under each of the four outcomes of the regulation – and importantly evidence compliance with the rules - is considerably enhanced by a practice management system that works well.
Joining all the dots
Taking this a step further, a practice management system fully integrated with an investment platform means you can perform all the usual platform tasks without needing to leave the back office environment. Seamlessly connecting each stage of the advice journey further increases efficiency, cutting manual processes, removing the need to rekey data, reducing errors and ultimately leading to better outcomes for your clients and your business. The US launch of wealthlink, a platform offering full investment functionality within the office environment, saw submission errors fall from 50% to 1%, thanks to intelligent data collection and removal of paper forms. wealthlink is now available in the UK, and similar efficiency gains to those seen in other markets are expected as adoption increases
By using the right technology effectively, your firm can operate a genuinely joined-up advice process. Putting your practice management system front and centre within your technology ecosystem will deliver efficiencies that give you back time to focus on your client relationships and improve the experience for your clients as well as your team.
