Leading-edge technology is a primary lever for growth in enterprise wealth management. As such, firms need to remain ahead of the innovation curve to deliver top-tier client service—or risk losing business. Talent is also on the move across financial services as promising young advisors and experienced professionals alike seek practices that empower them to achieve peak productivity.
Advisor360° CRO Jeff Schwantz put it succinctly: “If attracting and retaining advisors is a priority for enterprises, providing them an integrated, automated platform experience is essential.”
As part of the 2024 edition of our award-winning Connected Wealth Report series, we surveyed 300 financial advisors and executives at enterprise wealth management firms in the U.S. to identify emerging opportunities as well as potential problems cropping up across the wealth management landscape now and in the year ahead.
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Advisor productivity is paramount
Among the most revealing insights, our survey data indicates that nearly all advisors are willing to leave their current employers for firms that invest in innovation to fuel growth and productivity—and almost half say they already have moved for better tech.
The findings point to growing advisor dissatisfaction over the tools they use for serving and retaining clients. More than half of survey respondents say they lost business over the last year because of bad technology, while nearly all have lost business over the past two years.
Conversely, great technology has advantages. Almost all of the respondents who ranked their technology as state-of-the-art have gained new clients as a result of a competitor’s subpar tech setup.
New tech for a new day
Firms need to keep pace with the fast-moving tech preferences of advisors and their clients. Advisors are saying they rely on their mobile devices for client communication, workflow and task management, client reporting, trading, and prospecting for new business. At the same time, they resoundingly favor using social media for communication and prospecting.
This tells us that firms should support advisors’ ability to use mobile devices and give them the tools and training they need to market to prospects across multiple channels.
To make this happen, Advisor360° CRO Jeff Schwantz says, “Firms need to choose the right technology partners—ones that are forward thinking and creating tech for younger generations of investors and advisors alike.”
Adapting for future growth
As wealth management continues to evolve, firms find themselves at a crossroads: maintain the status quo or own cutting-edge tech. There really isn’t a choice. Updating tech infrastructure is a necessity to survive and thrive. Our 2024 Connected Wealth Report delves into surprising insights, uncovering what advisors say they need to support firmwide efficiency and foster growth in the dynamic landscape of today and tomorrow.
Read the full 2024 Connected Wealth Report for more insights from the past year.
About Advisor360°’s 2024 Connected Wealth Report
As part of our award-winning Connected Wealth Report research, we surveyed 300 financial advisors and executives at enterprise wealth management firms in the U.S. to better understand their perspective on the impact of technology on their business. Responses were collected via a telephone- and email-based survey fielded during September and October 2023. Respondents were from firms with an average of $9 billion in assets under management and more than 1,000 employees. The survey for the 2024 Connected Wealth Report was conducted by Coleman Parkes Research on behalf of Advisor360°. Advisor360° and Coleman Parkes are separate and unaffiliated organizations.
Cynthia Stephens is Vice President of Marketing at Advisor360°, developing go-to-market strategies that drive growth for the company’s Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms and leading all marketing efforts including brand, content and social marketing, account based marketing, digital, and product marketing.
