Practice management top of mind for advisers

In its second What Advisors Want report, Ensombl said practice management was the topic users most frequently discussed and engaged with on the platform over the six months to 31 December 2023.

Using the Ensombl Natural Language Processing engine and AI to analyse the 8,750 platform users’ activities and interactions on the site, Ensombl collated a list of the top 10 topics discussed on the platform.

Taking out the top spot for the latest reporting period, practice management rose from fourth in H1 23, encapsulating a variety of topics related to the running of an advice practice such as HR, outsourcing, efficiency, and compliance, among others.

This was followed by advice tech in second, superannuation in third, then investments, technical knowledge, and insurance.

The report noted significant changes in the remaining top 10 spots with retirement, client experience, Centrelink, and platforms working their way onto the list.

Ensombl explained that the rise of interest in retirement and Centrelink this period is likely a reflection of the increased media coverage of retirement income streams and providers working to bring better retirement solutions to market over the latter half of 2023.

As new topics rose in interest, topics that made the top 10 for the previous reporting period, including SMSF, strategy, professional year, and client acquisition, were bumped from the list.

The report also debuted a new assessment tool, Blue Ocean Tracking, that analyses how frequently a topic is discussed as well as the level of engagement it received from platform users.

Assessing topic engagement

Split into four categories, topics that were discussed more frequently but received low engagement fell into the “Red Ocean” category, meaning they were more common topics but relatively shallow, these included insurance, investment, and superannuation.

“Blue Ocean” topics were discussed less frequently but received high engagement when they were, these included topics such as strategy, advice fees and licensing, among others.

According to Ensombl, “Blue Ocean” topics present an opportunity for product providers to stand out to advisers as they have a higher “novelty value”.

Commenting on the introduction of the Blue Ocean Tracking tool in the report, Ensombl chief executive Clayton Daniel said the new tool allowed them to understand and highlight how the frequency of conversations about a topic doesn’t always translate to adviser engagement.

“Many high-volume conversations, such as those around superannuation and life insurance, are actually quite shallow, business-as-usual-type conversations, with low engagement from advisers,” Daniel said.

“For a provider, these ‘red oceans’ are crowded spaces to be in, taking more effort and resources to stand out. Blue Ocean topics on the other hand are discussed less frequently, but attract extremely high engagement, allowing providers to stand out and connect with advisers far more easily.”

By showing how invested advisers are in certain issues using the new tool, Daniel said, there is hope that product providers will be able to better understand what advisers want to see, giving them a greater voice.

“Our vision as a community is to give advisers a seat at the table with providers, creating a conduit between their challenges and the product development and innovation that will shape the future of the profession,” he said.

“We want real-life adviser problems to shape marketplace solutions, and by showing providers the topics enabling more effective engagement, we hope to be able to strengthen adviser/provider connection and make it easier to establish that conduit.”