In the world of wealth management, the core objectives remain clear: aiding clients in outperforming the market and helping them achieve their specific financial goals. However, in today’s landscape, guiding clients toward optimal financial decisions and supporting their wealth objectives has become an increasingly challenging endeavor. With the backdrop of shrinking management fees, escalating compliance and regulatory demands, and a fiercely competitive advisory market, retaining both clients and advisors while attracting new business has become a formidable task. While the data explosion of the past decade promised wealth managers unprecedented insights for market success, the reality is that many have become overwhelmed by its sheer volume.
In fact, a recent study by Oliver Wyman highlights that most wealth managers are not seeking “more data” but, rather, “improved data.” This underscores the growing frustration among wealth managers as they grapple with the immense expectations placed on them by the era of Big Data. To harness the potential of Big Data, a strategic approach to technology, investments in Enterprise Data Management, and the implementation of clear, long-term cloud strategies are imperative.
The Current State of Wealth Manager Workflow
Wealth managers at the pinnacle of success need a competitive edge, drawing insights from a wide range of information sources, often extending beyond their industry focus, and applying it in a customer-centric manner. This entails poring over market trend reports, industry statistics, and market data to identify opportunities. Most importantly, successful advisors must connect and align this information with the data they have on their clients. Without tools and efficient data management, advisors face the nearly insurmountable challenge of prioritizing clients and capitalizing on the available market and client information. Moreover, the modern advisor juggles between 7 to 9 applications in their daily routine, such as financial planning tools, robo-advisory platforms, and CRM systems, making seamless integration and workflow alignment critical for enhanced client engagement.
The quantity and quality of data available to wealth managers and their ability to contextualize it directly impact the quality of service they can provide to their clients. The sheer volume of data, originating from both front and back offices, as well as external sources, exceeds human analysis capabilities.
The Intelligent Advisor Platform
At Refinitiv, we recognize the pressing need for a solution to the data overload challenge faced by wealth managers. We offer a platform that can effectively integrate and organize a wealth manager’s clients and priorities through analytics, enabling them to better serve clients. This platform aids in predicting how to manage investments and supports actions to help clients achieve their financial goals. It intelligently integrates and aggregates client data and referential content into the wealth manager’s workflow, providing real-time analysis at an enterprise level. This integration empowers advisors to immediately identify clients affected by market events and take swift action.
From data governance to managing unstructured data and generating insights, advisors, at every level, cannot be truly effective without this level of automation to connect client data, referential content, and analytics to facilitate client-focused action. The task is monumental, and the stakes are high. A partner who can integrate front- and back-office data with other relevant external sources to shape meaningful intelligence is invaluable.
In Action
Consider this scenario: international trade negotiators deliberate on aluminum prices and the potential imposition of tariffs on imports from a specific country. The speed at which a wealth manager can interpret this information and assess its implications for clients with portfolios containing, for instance, Coca-Cola or Anheuser-Busch InBev, can mean the difference of several percentage points in an enterprise investor’s portfolio returns.
Or envision the discovery of a substantial deposit of rare materials off the coast of Japan. A savvy wealth advisor might recommend long positions in chipmakers like Intel or Qualcomm, along with companies producing battery and high-tech products poised to benefit from the influx of raw materials. Being able to leverage this opportunity via an asset allocation tool that supports client financial plans can significantly improve the achievement of client goals.
Revealing such insights can strengthen the advisor-client relationship and enhance decision-making regarding portfolio selection and allocation. To accomplish this, wealth advisors need tools to deliver contextually relevant information in real-time.
Refinitiv’s Wealth Management platform offers actionable insights directly within the wealth manager’s workflow. By bringing together portfolio data, CRM data, and contextual, predictive news, we equip wealth managers with the tools they require to offer a more personalized client service. The Practice Management views identify which clients should be contacted, what is affecting them, and how they should be engaged, from rebalancing financial plans to suggesting more suitable products or altering allocation decisions in response to changing market risk and its impact on client portfolios.
Automation Sets You Free
Automating insights offers numerous advantages by enabling wealth managers to provide superior investment advice. More importantly, this unprecedented level of automated data aggregation frees wealth managers to spend more time building relationships with their clients instead of conducting extensive research.
The Intelligent Advisor represents the future of advisory services, consolidating all the necessary data and applications into one integrated solution, simplifying portfolio and relationship management.