Improving advisor productivity is always top of mind in the wealth management industry. It’s a logical focus for wealth management firms looking to attract and retain top talent and increase assets under management. Advisors that have more time to work on growing their book of business, are more likely to be satisfied and they’re bound to be more profitable. According to BCG, “The costs that affluent-focused players incur in producing business are far too high, and they could become even more profitable if they were to increase efficiency.” They go on to state that top performers need 5 fewer assistants than average performers showing the link between efficiency and assets under management.
Optimizing productivity is easier said than done, however. Numerous factors collude to tie up an advisor’s time. Intensive, regulator-imposed data collection and paperwork. Multi-step manual processes for client onboarding. Massive amounts of data – more than ever before – to be examined for service and sales opportunities. Disconnected technology that requires offline analysis and duplicate data entry.
At first glance, it appears that many separate solutions will be required to overcome these challenges. In our experience, however, integrating data sources and applications into a single solution goes a long way toward eliminating many of the obstacles to advisor efficiency.
NexJ put this premise to the test when we first engaged with RBC, one of the world’s ten largest wealth managers, serving clients with a full suite of banking, investment, trust, and other wealth management solutions. We had the following goals in mind
- Determine how much extra productivity we gain for each advisor with streamlined and automated common day-to-day work, then calculate the benefit to the company of that newfound time.
- Implement a solution that would eliminate those hours without compromising service quality or regulatory compliance … in fact, we hoped to improve service quality and compliance!
We went right to work determining how much time we could save the firm’s advisors per week. We looked at typical tasks the advisors performed on a daily basis. We measured the amount of time spent completing these tasks with the tools advisors had at their disposal. We then measured how long it would take with NexJ’s integrated advisor desktop, which integrates back office data sources and day-to-day applications into a single solution and delivers time-saving CRM and streamlined workflows for key activities.
The result? A MINIMUM of 2 more hours of productivity per advisor, per week!
Based on fees and commissions, this increase in productivity would enable the firm to earn an additional $30,000 of revenue per advisor per year. This was monumental!
How can that efficiency gain be used to increase customer service and ultimately assets under management? Michael Kitces concluded that advisors spend, on average, 8 hours per week directly engaging with clients. RBC advisors can take that extra 2 hours and increase client engagement by 25%. Better client engagement leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction.
Imagine what your advisors could do with extra time … if you’re interested in learning more about how we help our clients increase productivity, check out our Integrated Advisor Desktop or send a message. We’d love to hear from you.
