Rana Biswas joined Equisoft with over 25 years of experience in banking, insurance and financial services that he developed in India. As a strategic thinker and thought leader with a strong focus on execution, Rana’s outstanding track record in P&L management has stemmed from his focus on optimizing cost structures and igniting profitable growth. At Equisoft, Mr. Biswas drives the company’s success in the APAC region. He leads Equisoft’s sales and business development and works tirelessly with clients to help them craft strategic initiatives for their IT transformation to drive efficiency and profitable growth. Equisoft’s clients depend on Biswas’s strong domain knowledge on Insurance sales, distribution and multiple challenges faced by the carriers on the technology front and his passion to provide a robust solution.
A new generation of wealth management solutions enables a redefinition of the financial advisor role, creating greater practice efficiencies and superior client experiences. Those advisors who most effectively take advantage of the power of these technologies will flourish in the constantly disrupted wealth management ecosystem.
The new generation of wealth management tools for advisors promises to take their practices to new levels of efficiency and enable them to do an even better job of meeting client needs. Leveraging these technologies is the best way to redefine the advisor role and succeed in a continually disrupted environment.
For investors, these technologies mean better service and easier access to powerful needs assessment & analytics. Digital advances streamline sales and service processes and provide better customer experiences across the board, while simultaneously reducing costs.
These wealth management solutions have had a great impact on advisor interactions with clients. The old sales model that played out in person over a variety of widely spaced meetings is not tenable in a digital era‒ not when all other kinds of purchases can be made wherever and whenever the consumer desires, instantaneously.
New digital tools permit a collapsing of the sales and service process. Clients get better results with less effort required. And wealth management organizations have more opportunity to reduce service costs and promote their products within client portfolios. Three technologies are changing the landscape:
- Client Relationship Management (CRM) solutions
CRM systems tailored to financial advisors can significantly improve customer onboarding, client service, and communication – hence efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Intelligent forms and auto completion, as well as electronic signatures, are all elements of modern CRMs that speed up the process of gathering customer information. They align customer-facing wealth management processes with client experiences faced outside the financial services industry.
Because client data from different manufacturers is centralized in the CRM and automatically updated, advisors no longer have to spend time pulling together different data sets to get a 360-degree picture of their clients’ investments.
CRMs also improve communication, because advisors don’t have to track follow-up activities—the CRM does it for them. Clients are contacted at the right times. And the integrated data and email means it’s easier to confirm information with clients. Processes run more smoothly.
These types of CRMs make advisors more efficient, compliant and enable them to serve clients more effectively.
- Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) solutions
Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) solutions reveal a client’s entire range of requirements. A Financial Needs Analysis used to be unstructured, ad hoc interactions with a client. Advisors used their “people skills” to pull out each client’s needs in “back of the envelope” conversations. This created a drawn-out discovery process that often unfolded over several meetings and resulted in unpredictable outcomes for the investor. Not the most satisfying customer experience.
These traditional ad hoc processes can now be replaced with digital, advisor-specific FNAs. Advisors can use these tools to easily assess a client’s current situation and future financial requirements.
This becomes the foundation for creating repeatable and effective processes for defining and recording each client’s journey‒enabling the advisor to quickly identify a client’s financial information, goals, and risk profiles.
- Portfolio optimization software
Portfolio optimization software boosts investment returns. Data-driven, fully automated financial and insurance planning platforms with access to all client data and fund factsheets are among the platforms that create a world-class customer experience. This software can quickly compare funds and put together concise, benefit-driven presentations. Analytics-based suggestions show why each product is the best fit for the client’s portfolio.
Many of the time-consuming data collecting and servicing processes that have traditionally utilized so much of an advisor’s time can be automated by using advisor-specific portfolio design solutions. These solutions also ensure consistency in the quality of the portfolio analysis and consistency of messaging about the products that are being recommended.
Conclusion
Needs analysis and portfolio optimization solutions transform client interactions when integrated with CRM as part of a digitally enhanced advisor toolkit.
Given the constant volatility of the financial markets globally, the clients expect their wealth advisors to be dynamic and on top of their game. This is now a must-have rather than a good-to-have competency of the advisors.
New and intuitive tools and technology will help advisors better serve their customers. Those who develop innovative ways to expand their business, attract new clients, and keep their pipeline full will become the trusted advisors their clients cherish for many years.