As security concerns push family offices toward better technology solutions, partnering with an advanced digital wealth platform provider can become the foundation for effective operations across their entire service range.
Of the family offices surveyed for the Campden Wealth/AlTi Tiedemann Global Family Office Operational Excellence Report 2025, 94% said they outsourced IT services. Only legal services and tax planning were more frequently outsourced (both at 96%). Meanwhile, cybersecurity emerged as a key growth area with 22% of family offices having added it to their service portfolios over the last two years.
This combination of widespread IT outsourcing and growing cybersecurity focus creates a strategic opportunity. While family office IT services take many forms, one approach to leveraging them stands out: working with an advanced, security-first software-as-a-service (SaaS) digital wealth platform. Such partnerships meet family offices’ general outsourcing goals while addressing their cybersecurity needs and wealth owner experience demands.
The big picture: what family offices outsource and why
Even the largest family offices rely heavily on outsourcing. They do so to access specialised expertise, manage costs, and maintain operational flexibility. The strategic drivers are clear:
- Access to expertise: complex requirements like multi-jurisdictional tax planning or regulatory compliance often exceed what is practical to maintain in-house.
- Cost efficiency: outsourcing reduces operational overhead. It eliminates the need to hire and retain highly specialised staff for intermittent needs.
- Scalability: external partnerships allow family offices to adapt quickly to changing requirements—new asset classes, evolving regulations, or family growth—without major internal restructuring.
The Campden Wealth data shows clear patterns in what family offices choose to outsource:
- Highly outsourced (86-96%): legal services, tax planning, IT services, cybersecurity, and estate planning.
- Moderately outsourced (70-79%): investment management, deal due diligence, risk management, and accounting.
- Least outsourced (under 70%): functions touching the family’s core identity and relationships—governance transition planning, succession planning, family engagement and education. Concierge services ranked lowest at just 35%, reflecting their personal nature.
This hierarchy shows family offices’ strategic approach: outsource technical expertise while keeping control over relationship-critical functions. Even with extensive outsourcing, family offices maintain a crucial coordination role. They ensure external providers align with family objectives and manage potential conflicts of interest. For example, family offices typically handle investment manager fee negotiations directly. Doing so prevents external advisers from putting their own interests above the family’s. This coordination ensures that outsourced capabilities serve the family’s unique goals and values.
An advanced digital wealth platform: a strategic foundation for family office IT outsourcing
Based on the technology capabilities family offices prioritise and their main concerns about technology implementation, an advanced digital wealth platform that combines multiple functions may be the most strategic IT outsourcing option available. Rather than managing separate vendors and systems, a comprehensive platform creates a unified foundation that strengthens practically every family office function.
The top four technologies family offices prioritise
Campden’s research shows that the most popular technology capabilities family offices used in 2024 were:
- Cloud-based data storage (85% of survey respondents)
- Document management (66%)
- Mobile access to data (64%)
- Consolidated investment performance reporting (64%, up significantly from 47% in 2023)
Family offices’ primary technology concerns
Campden’s data shows that family offices’ top technology concerns are not just about technology itself. They also worry about the processes around technology and how their people use it. Specifically, workflows based on spreadsheets—which are a technology solution, but an outdated one—and the surrounding manual data entry processes are two of the top three concerns family offices have about technology.
This finding highlights a critical insight: family offices are not struggling with technology sophistication. They’re struggling with outdated, labor-intensive processes that create inefficiency and risk.
Data source: Campden Wealth/AlTi Tiedemann Global Family Office Operational Excellence Report 2025
Clearly, improving how team members use, store, and access spreadsheets misses the fundamental opportunity. Instead, family offices should consider adopting an advanced SaaS digital wealth platform that eliminates manual workflows entirely. A comprehensive platform designed specifically for family office needs can address every major technology concern while delivering the capabilities they are actively seeking.
See how the Altoo Wealth Platform does exactly that:
| Family office tech priorities |
Achieved with Altoo |
|---|---|
| Cloud-based data storage | Private cloud advantage. Altoo stores data in a private cloud in a tier four Swiss data centre. |
| Document management | Streamlined. Important digital files like contracts or insurance policies can be attached logically to appropriate wealth items. |
| Mobile access to data | Provided through the easy-to-use, ultra-secure Altoo mobile app. |
| Consolidated investment performance reporting | Unified across all assets. Altoo exists to simplify complex wealth held in even the most diverse portfolios of bankable and non-bankable assets. |
| Family office tech concerns |
Addressed with Altoo |
|---|---|
| Reliance on spreadsheets manual aggregation of data | Eliminated. Wealth data flows directly into the platform via secure APIs, enabling automated aggregation, near real-time analysis, and dynamic reporting without manual intervention. |
| Cost of new technology retaining IT staff | Predictable and managed. The SaaS model provides enterprise-grade technology for a transparent fixed fee, with all maintenance, security updates, and technical support handled by Altoo's specialised team. |
| Too many single-solution applications | Consolidated. Altoo integrates portfolio management, reporting, document storage, and family communication into one comprehensive platform, eliminating the need to manage multiple vendor relationships and data silos. |
| Change management training staff | Minimised. The intuitive interface requires minimal training, allowing family members and staff to access critical information regardless of technical expertise. |
| Document storage | Integrated seamlessly. Documents attach directly to relevant wealth items—investments, entities, family members—creating logical organisation that mirrors how family offices actually operate. |
| Identity access management | Enterprise-grade. Customisable user permissions and multi-factor authentication ensure appropriate access controls, with detailed audit trails for compliance and oversight. |
The strategic multiplier effect
By selecting an advanced digital wealth platform as the cornerstone of IT outsourcing, family offices unlock value that goes far beyond traditional technology services. The platform becomes the central nervous system that strengthens every other function. Investment managers work with comprehensive, near real-time portfolio data. Tax advisers access automated reporting. Family members across generations use interfaces designed specifically for wealth management needs.
This integrated approach can fundamentally transform how the family office operates. Instead of coordinating multiple technology vendors — each with different systems, security protocols, and update schedules — the family office partners with a single provider. This provider delivers enterprise-grade capabilities while understanding the specific needs of ultra-high-net-worth families.
The compound benefits are substantial: reduced vendor management overhead, eliminated data silos, enhanced security through unified protocols, and streamlined user training. Most importantly, the technology foundation scales seamlessly as family complexity grows, whether through new generations, additional entities, or expanded asset classes.
Ready to get these benefits with Altoo? Contact us for a demo today!
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