There is no ‘holy grail’ tech solution

In a Colonial First State (CFS) 10X webinar on tech stack transformations, Peter Worn, founder and joint managing director of Finura Group, said that although many wish there was a one-size-fits-all solution for advice technology, unfortunately, it does not yet exist.

“We do look for the holy grail, the unicorn of tech. The unicorn doesn’t exist,” he said.

“As an industry, we have found millions of ways of doing the exact same processes. That makes building tech really, really hard for some companies.

“The holy grail, ultimately, is the right combination of processes and capability and the technology supports it. No two businesses are going to be the same in how they deploy it.”

Worn explained that when a firm is looking to increase their client capacity, it is important they have the right tech stack that allows them to maximise efficiency without bringing on more staff.

“We can’t keep throwing people at our process problems. If we want to scale and maintain our margins, we need more tech. We need to be able to service more clients with the people that we’ve got,” he said.

When considering the cost of using a third-party consultant to review and implement a business’ tech stack, the return on investment is significant.

Drew Meredith, co-founder of Wattle Partners, said his firm is looking at saving $10,000–$20,000 each year once it has implemented the changes recommended by Finura.

“We’re confident we can double our number of clients without adding double the amount of staff, which means we have to hire less administration staff and junior staff. We would probably need two more if we weren’t doing this, so there’s $130,000 in annual staff costs as well,” Meredith added.

Worn said issues regarding technology within an advice firm often stem from making ad hoc additions to technology as they grow, with little consideration for efficiency.

“A lot of the problems that we find are a result of legacy, actually. Most advice businesses have been around for a long time in different forms. They’ve had succession and M&A,” he said.

“What you tend to find is that the tech doesn’t always keep up with the growth of the business. We find they end up with a collection of tech without a consistent strategy.”

Worn explained that the most common issues businesses find when reviewing their tech stack is a lack of integration between key systems, poor data quality, and a lack of staff training and adoption that hinders their ability to fully utilise the technology they already have.

When introducing changes to a business, Danni Le Grande, partner and head of consulting at Finura Group, said it’s “important to drip-feed the changes into a business”, rather than just rolling out everything in one fell swoop to allow staff time to learn and adjust to the new technology.

Worn added that “in the supermarket of technology”, it’s important to consider the needs of all staff and how clients prefer to engage with their adviser.