Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the wealth management industry, evolving client demands and changing the way to deliver advice and serve clients. For instance, according to Oliver Wyman Global Wealth Management Report, during the pandemic there has been a massive increase in client engagement across all digital channels (see figure 1).

The existing advice delivery model has been shown to be somewhat resilient, but with some limitations. In particular, as Oliver Wyman underlines, large bankowned wealth managers have found greater success leveraging channel upgrades made over recent years, while smaller independent wealth managers have had more difficulty managing client engagement due to a lack of remote working protocols and digital client engagement infrastructure.

Figure 1: Digital Engagement. Source: Oliver Wyman Analysis

It’s interesting to see how the next normal is looking. Wealth managers need to design the advice delivery model of the future, which will have to be omni-channel, blending the expertize and human touch of a relationship manager with the efficiency, convenience and scalability of digital solutions.

Moreover, as detected by the Compeer - End Client Research, significant improvements are absolutely required by clients’ demand (see figure 2) in terms of digital technology such as client portals, reporting and frictionless onboarding (central column). The right-side column is the percentage of investors that are likely to look for another provider if improvements won’t be made; which, not surprisingly, is a very big number.

A digital transformation is therefore mandatory, both for an effective delivery model of wealth management services and for client retention and acquisition. Let’s see how a customer of ours succeeded in doing so.

Figure 2: Client Demands. Source: Compeer, End Client Research, 2019, 2020

Key strategic priorities
As a trusted provider of execution-only, advisory and discretionary wealth management services, the firm wanted to attract new clients and younger generations of investors by embracing technology to continue being the long-term, trusted advisor for their clients, despite any generational transfer of wealth. To do so, the wealth firm engaged in digitalizing the onboarding and the suitability processes.

To further secure its future plans and growth, the wealth manager decided to offer an efficient discretionary management service alongside the existing advisory and execution-only offerings, delivering a more efficient and scalable operational model.

By releasing investment managers from tasks that could be automated, the firm wanted to focus its efforts on high-value tasks, while automating low-value activities. It aimed at increasing front-office productivity, with more clients being managed per investment manager, and at improving operating margins through cost-saving initiatives and the migration to fee-based advisory services.

In summary, enabling significant growth without impacting the overall profitability of the firm was the key pillar. Furthermore, it was heavily paper orientated, making client management very labor intensive. The firm needed to digitize many existing manual processes, adding automation and removing paper, whilst continuing to deliver a first-class service to clients.

Why Objectway?
When we initially engaged, the firm was already considering the use of another vendor’s CRM software to enable a more digitalized client management approach. However, it was becoming clear to the firm that its ambitions would not be well-serviced by just a standalone CRM. What was really required was a fully integrated Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution embedded in operational processes, integrated to existing systems and that serviced all areas of business.

With Objectway’s modular deployment approach, whereby we guaranteed total integration and a SaaS delivery, we demonstrated that our solution could be implemented in phases underpinning their business process without significant disruption and in a costeffective manner.

The solution
To address these challenges and deliver a strong platform for growth, we first focused on enabling a discretionary mandate offering to clients, by deploying our Portfolio Management system and integrating it with the firm’s existing back-office. This enabled our client to quickly adapt to the new service model and improve their investment managers’ productivity, increasing the number of clients served by 30%. The creation of a successful discretionary service, actively migrating to a fee-driven model, significantly improved a wealth retention strategy and resulted in industry-leading conversion rates to fee-based services within the firm’s peer group.

Phase two saw the deployment of the Investor Portal: this was the key to improving the digital solution offered to all end clients and to enable the delivery of all client-facing outputs, switching from paper to digital. This improved the speed clients received portfolio information, reduced the operational overhead around reporting and cut operational expenditure. Production time, postage costs, errors and operational efforts were reduced, and the use of paper was cut down by 60%.

The last step was to implement the full Client Lifecycle Management solution, where efficiencies would be gained in the onboarding of new clients, the creation of new services to existing clients and compliance oversight. Digitalized onboarding, suitability reviews and client reporting aided efficiency whilst ensuring better control to senior management and compliance.

“As a long-established and trusted provider of execution-only, advisory and discretionary wealth management services, we are now attracting both new clients and talents, by embracing technology to the benefit of our growing customer base,” the client says.

“The firm did not have the capacity to dedicate many resources and a strong desire for the project to be delivered on budget. We ensured there was a clear project scope, an agreed set of deliverables and a comprehensive testing and training approach,” concludes Alberto Cuccu, Chief Executive Officer - International, Objectway

This article was part of The Wealth Mosaic's Swiss WealthTech Landscape Report (2021). Access the full report here.