Tracking Stocks to Tracking Steps
16 years ago, when I took my first job, my mom, my first financial advisor gave an advice to me, “ Save Enough, before you start spending”. I did that.
My father my second financial advisor, after I had saved enough, guided me to start putting money in Fixed Deposits. I did that.
My ex colleague told me that if you are putting money in Fixed deposits, you might as well give it to me, I will give you more returns. So I asked him how? He said invest in Shares, so I went to my dad and said I want to buy shares, so he asked which ones and I didn’t have an answer. I went back to my colleague and asked him for his suggestions and he said “Alok Industries”. I went up-to my dad and told him that I want to buy shares of Alok Industries and he asked “why Alok? “ and I had only one answer, my colleague suggested to me.
My dad didn’t say anything and let me put my money on Alok industries. I was very much excited when I first bought them and looked at that share everyday and after few days my dad shared how much it increased or decreased. BTW it never really increased.
After that investment happened, my brother in law suggested me to have a financial advisor, who can guide me for my investments, I contacted Gerard, a financial advisor recommended by my friend. In 2 meetings I had an entire portfolio of mutual funds, Shares and SIP. Gerard, my first professional financial advisor had done a great job at knowing what kind of novice I was back then and suggested a portfolio which suits me as per my customer profile.
He did a fab job at building my portfolio for long term where I don’t have to bother looking at them on a daily basis. I realised that the colleague of mine, who had suggested “Alok Industries” shares , suggested it to me thinking I would trade stocks on a daily basis as he does. What he didn't realise that I was not him and his suggestions to me were completely irrelevant. Hence, having a personalised financial management suiting to your needs helps. Thats where my financial advisor understood me and helped me build a portfolio to my needs. The only problem with this engagement was it was very transaction oriented and not in a continuous engagement way where there is possibility to change the portfolio dynamically or take suggestions from him on the go. Ofcourse all this was many years ago but I still see not much change has happened here.
Digitalisation of financial advisors, investment advisors & wealth managers can bridge these gaps of continuous engagement with their customers and also enable them to reach to larger set of audience without having geographical constraints.
Out of the entire reflection process, I am very glad to consult a financial advisor who suggested the best portfolio as per my profile when I was young and in my 20s.
Today, I see financial advisory changing hands from an advisor to auto advisor y services where financial portfolio and management is not rested on random advices but a strong algorithm running behind to understand you and your financial goals to ensure right investments are done.
For a financial advisor, who has shrinking profitability should consider ways to implement technology and digitise its services and advisory to cater to a wide customer base in different age groups, especially our 21st century kids/adults.
Digitalisation of financial services, portfolio management and advisory services can really help your customers to ease out their pain of management of portfolios and to track them. In short your customers can focus now on being healthy by tracking their steps and not constantly tracking their stocks. Part of Being wealthy should be taken care by digital product to ensure a wholistic portfolio management, alert management and right advisory services are delivered at the right time.
Well, now, I let my financial advisor manage my wealth and I manage my health ?? . I guess I took that proverb literally “Health is Wealth”, and started looking after my health than my wealth. :-)