With so much industry, consumer and regulatory change on at the moment, many firms may benefit from taking a step back and looking at what is going on, and consider the end game (or at least as far as one can see at the moment).
Some of the constants are:
- that to be in business, one must have clients, and generally have a plan for growth
- that to be in business, one likely needs to create revenues, now mainly from those clients
- that to be in business, one likely has to have more revenues than costs to be sustainable
- that to be in the investments business, one generally. has to comply with the ever increasing rules and conduct-based regulations and codes
This applies not just for those who service investors directly, but to all players in the industry. With so much change and dynamics going on, what are the common themes that are forming, and do these give us an idea of the end game.
Some of these are:
- wholesaling is getting harder as one has little pricing power, so many businesses are going back to retail
- to keep costs down, it means having less players in the value chain taking a fee, meaning firms need to ‘do more’ themselves
- to keep clients interested and attracted, firms need a proposition that is about the collaboration of their specialist input and the clients essential parameters
What does all this mean ? Well what we are seeing is:
- firms (advice, platforms, investment managers) are delivering experience and generating margin by offering portfolios themselves
- many are realising that delivering portfolios themselves helps sustain brand strength and keep others out, and in many cases reduce costs
- the experience of consumers interacting with the portfolio propositions is a variable of humans and technology involvement, perhaps different interaction models for different segments
Critical to the success of the above is technology and an operating model that is built to consider all of the above. If this strikes a chord then it may be worth reaching out to us at Financial Simplicity. We help firms evolve and change to get to their sustainable end game.
