Salesforce, for example, always manages to make us smile. Last year, the question posed by its co-CEO after his company acquired MuleSoft for $6.5 billion was: “…this is integration software, what does that have to do with CRM?”

I know the first question that pops into many people’s heads when they hear about programs such as these is: ‘Why not wait until we find out more before signing up?’ That’s a valid question but, when it involves a CRM product from an 

We saw the complaints online, read the messages on Twitter, checked out memes that circulated all weekend, and thought long and hard about the massive outage that affected a whole lot of Salesforce users. There were conflicting reports at first but, apparently, the deployment of a database script inadvertently gave users broader access than intended. This is a polite way of saying there were serious issues related to security that affected a lot of paying customers.

Data migration involves a change in storage and database or application, which is what makes it a potentially complicated process. This is why we, at NexJ Systems, adopt industry best practices while managing migrations from legacy systems, using our extensive tooling and significant experience with client data encompassing a varying degree of size and scope.

Today, firms have access to information at an unprecedented level and must contend with a highly regulated industry as well as the commodification of products and services. For a CRM solution like NexJ, this represents a challenge as well as a great deal of opportunity, because more information about a customer is a powerful tool when used effectively.

When users spend a great deal of time collecting onboarding data, the drain on a user’s time means they have less time to spend on revenue-generating activities. When data is housed solely in an onboarding solution, the information that can’t be shared between systems is lost for processes performed outside of the onboarding software.

Wealth management is about trust. It is about giving an advisor control of your financial health and security and depending upon that advisor to make or recommend decisions that help you meet your financial goals. When we, as CRM vendors, focus on features that give our products an edge, we always focus on how specific features can help advisors build more trust. This is what makes relationship hierarchies so important.

In "The Great Wealth Transfer is Coming, Putting Advisers at Risk," an article in Investment News, they pointed out that 66% of heirs fire their parents' financial adviser after they receive an inheritance. Marketing Wiz's "The State of Independent Financial Marketing" whitepaper discusses how every day, $2 billion in assets move from Baby Boomers to Generation X and Generation Y heirs. Combining these two statistics paints a concerning picture for financial advisors. How can Wealth Management firms address the needs of these inheriting children, to prevent losing 66% of their asset base?

I’ve spoken in the past about integrated desktops and the value they bring to advisors and the firm. In essence, the integrated desktop brings together all the information and applications an advisor uses into a single workspace.