Drive better conversations with insights and analytics

Wealth Managers commonly manage dozens of applications across their business, including CRM, Web portals, research, accounting/finance, portfolio and execution systems. If history is a guide for the future, these systems will continue to increase, with evolution of digital. 

These systems, having evolved through specialist knowledge, each store client information from unique perspectives. Consequently, valuable markers of behaviour, profitability and attitudes lay scattered across your organisation.

Technologists have typically addressed this challenge through data warehousing, whereby all systems are drawn into a common data store. Whist has been effective, the pace of change and number of business systems and feeds has stretched technical resources and increased complexity, leading to long delays. 

This issue is particularly problematic as more wealth managers embrace cloud computing, where the client and business data is both on and off-premise. 

In addressing this delay, staff after take matters in to their own hands, through a combination of system/manual extracts, mammoth spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks. Whilst this technique does by-pass the technical bottleneck, it brings these inherent risks; 

1. Inconsistent measures and KPI’s preventing dependable comparison across the practice 
2. Costly maintenance of complex departmental spreadsheets causing risky and expensive key person risk
3. Information security measures are easily bypassed, risking client and operational leaks.

Enter Insights and Analytics

Analytics has a lead role to play bringing data together in an intuitive manner, so that on any given day, advisers can visually explore their client book for opportunities to connect. Insights from analytics can underpin next best conversations in a way that the customer will value. 

Modern analytics platforms build upon the rigour of a central data store, information security and commonly defined measures and KPI’s from their predecessors. They add in their design, a shared delivery model. This in practice allows for lines of business flexibility to author new insights and adjust existing ones, whilst sourcing their data from trusted, secure sources. Such insights can be shared amongst teams or more broadly. As common data models and KPIs are used during this process, these platforms can facilitate enterprise wide analysis and bench-marking. 

New data sources (external/cloud, or new system) can easily be integrated for quick analysis and ultimately promoted to the core data model where most benefit is realised. This flexibility enables departments to respond quickly to market developments either for transient analysis or to prototype before committing the new analytics for broad use. 

These analytics can be delivered to any device, so that users can explore business performance during their monthly board meeting or morning commute. Analytics can also be embedded into your client portal or CRM, informing decisions and improving customer experience with near real-time data updates.

Beneficiaries

• Management: Centralised sourcing, aggregation and exploration of insights affords management with trusted, unbiased information from which to base decisions and where to focus attention. Firm-wide objectives can be unpacked, explored and discussed with individuals and teams throughout client portfolios, geographies and product sets. Such alignment drives objective bench-marking, coaching and performance forecasting
• Advsors & planners: Analytics has the potential to enable better service whilst providing better visibility of revenue and opportunities. By combining insights across the business, with market data, analytics can also help advisors fulfil their fiduciary duty, building trust and business by highlighting opportunities to educate, assist and position advice relevant for clients who are;

1. Impacted most by market moves, driving trading ideas reinforcing firm’s view
2. Exposed to Country / industry / company news giving rise to share your firms view.
3. Deviating from agreed asset allocations, opportunity to discuss re-balancing strategies and review goals.
4. Behavioural triggers like deviations in transaction size / frequency / portfolio views 

• Risk and Compliance: Analytics can provide teams with real-time transparency across the business. Market, credit and operational /conduct risks can be assessed continually. Importantly, visual analytics encourages staff to explore their operations, highlighting outliers and trends which may lay hidden in regular reporting. Best practice with our analytics is to share access with front line (1st line of defence) so that risks can be self-managed, and complimented during periodic audit, these commonly include;

1. Assessing investment fit by plotting risk profile with invested product risk 
2. Client review timeliness and asset allocation against mandates
3. Commission and revenue patterns for consistency and spikes and patterns 
4. P&L attribution to detect outliers, or unacceptable exposures or reference rate errors

BI/Analytics & reporting: Modern analytics platforms enable teams throughout your business to ask questions of the data-set beyond those envisaged at design time. This flexibility reduces ongoing build commitments from technology teams, more equitably sharing this load with staff across the business. Our experience shows that this shared delivery model improves technology / business partnership, which transforms into a relationship of guidance and advisory. 

Conclusion

You operate in an environment heaving with data, created both externally (market, economic, statistical) and by activities of staff and clients. Opportunities lay hidden in the connections across your data. Analytics offers your front-line to surface insights that your clients will value, conducting deeper, more timely conversations with their clients, building trust and new business.