Taking people on the data journey

A wealth business relies on its people and its internal culture to ensure the successful implementation of any data strategy. Board approval for the necessary investments and resourcing is important, but so too is firm-wide buy-in, engagement, and understanding of the strategy’s objectives and end goals. Although many accept in theory that good data is important, without this understanding, that will not lead to investment or behavioural change.

• “People generally recognise that without the right data it's hard to do a lot of things – but it doesn't then often translate into actually investing money to sort that problem out.” – COO, mid-tier wealth manager

That makes training and culture critical to any data strategy. Firms must establish a ‘data-first’ culture and enact comprehensive training programmes as part of their strategy.

Not everyone in a business is technically efficient, and time can be wasted by individuals trying to track down the right data. This means firms must develop business-wide guidance on who can access data and how, both today and in the future. As data becomes more accessible, easier to use, and most importantly, trusted, confidence in the new data structure will grow.

Our conversations with wealth firms revealed three people-related aspects to any data strategy that are essential to get right.

• “Getting good people who genuinely understand the data – and don’t just say they do – is the biggest challenge we have.” – CTO, mid-tier advice firm 

First: Talent.

• “It's slightly a holy grail when it comes to technology people – they're technical experts and may also have that business context – but they need the commercial perspective too.” – COO, mid-tier wealth manager

Firms need individuals who understand what good data requires, and importantly how that applies practically to wealth businesses. The talent requirement has a few core capabilities:

• Strong technical and analytical skills to manage, manipulate, and extract value from data
• Business understanding and wealth management sectoral understanding to devise practical and efficient processes and workflows
• Data synthesis skills to consolidate fragmented data into usable, structured outputs

All the firms we spoke to have in-house teams, albeit quite small in some instances, which support the implementation of data strategies with the technical and analytical capabilities required. For smaller firms, this resourcing can be challenging. Nonetheless, access to this specialised expertise is essential to ensure the adoption and long-term success of a data strategy.

Second: Buy-in.

• “We need to stay true to our strategy. If you don't get business buy-in, it becomes an IT strategy rather than what the business needs to function.” – COO, mid-tier bank

A data strategy cannot succeed without organisation-wide engagement. All employees across the business must understand and commit to the data strategy and the inevitable changes it will impose upon processes and workflows. Data must become everyone’s responsibility – not simply a concern of technical teams. Key aspects of this buy-in include:

• Consistent adoption of new workflows and weaning the business away from manual processes
• Aligning the strategy with business needs, ensuring the strategy is seen as enabling outcomes – not just as technology change for the sake of it
• Cultural change that addresses resistance to new technology or new processes, and builds confidence in data-driven approaches. 

Resistance to change can undermine progress, making it essential to align the strategy with business needs everyone accepts, rather than positioning it as a purely technical initiative. Encouraging those less enthusiastic about data to become data-proficient does not happen overnight. However, with strong use-cases to illustrate the benefits – and importantly, ongoing training and support while new systems are being implemented to house a data lake or warehouse – the chances of a more data-enthused workforce are higher.

• “I hired a head of data governance who was very good and very experienced. We did some road shows for the business to help them understand the need for good data governance and the benefits of it.” – Ex-COO, large wealth manager

Although not everyone may be comfortable working with data, its benefits can certainly be shared, and individuals can understand its importance and start to engage with it further.

• “A lot of people just can't build out data from scratch. They struggle with data and the concept of what's possible so we found that if you give people something to start with, we can then help them build it out.” – COO, mid-tier wealth manager

Third: Enablement.

• “We had to pivot away from having people self-serving, which is how we set up the original data architecture. We effectively created what we call a business intelligence team to support the business.” – COO, mid-tier wealth manager

Even with the right talent and strong buy-in, a data strategy will falter if employees are not practically enabled to use data in their day-to-day roles. Firms must improve data accessibility to make it straightforward for employees across the business to find, access, and use data without friction.

Improving the user experience of data is critical to driving sustained engagement. Where its accessibility is improved and employees can see how it improves their productivity, they will adapt their working practices. If data is difficult to locate or requires significant manipulation, employees will revert to manual workarounds, undermining the strategy.

This is especially critical in the front office, where the need to spend time with individual clients, combined with constant time pressures, makes ease of access essential. Enablement requires: 

• Intuitive access to consolidated, reliable data, tailored to different user needs, including those of clients, boards and ExCos, finance teams, and regulators
• Clear structures and standardised outputs, such as dashboards and reports, that reduce the need to build from scratch
• Support mechanisms, such as business intelligence teams or data specialists, to help users translate data into usable outputs
• Empowerment of ‘super users’ who can experiment, refine outputs, and act as internal champions, creating templates that can be used by others or acting as case studies for the good use of data

For many employees, working with data does not come naturally. Providing structured starting points and guided support helps build confidence and capability over time.

Although in the short term this process may be painful – particularly while data is remediated – getting this right over the longer term significantly reduces manual intervention and increases productivity through higher-quality, more timely outputs. 

Strong data governance as part of the strategy will ensure standards are maintained as these new reports are trialled.

The vast amounts of data, if well organised, trustworthy and accessible, will increase business opportunities for firms and reduce the costs of manual intervention. People will buy in as they gain confidence in the data source and recognise the benefits it brings.

Five essentials to achieving good data

The drive for good data in the wealth industry is clearly underway. The goal is the ‘single source of truth’ for data storage, typically held in a data lake or warehouse, and accessible to all in the business as appropriate. Good data is now increasingly seen as a key differentiator by wealth firms to support growth, achieve scale, and drive ROI – as well as supporting better decision-making, improved client outcomes, and greater operational efficiency and productivity.

To achieve this, wealth managers must:

1. Have a data strategy

All wealth firms, regardless of size, should have a data strategy in place. The goal should be a single repository for a firm’s data, accessible to all who need it. Where technology and resourcing constraints limit this end goal, some core governance principles – that prioritise data quality and standardisation – go a long way to improving day-to-day efficiency until the firm can make the appropriate investment.

2. Leverage technology

Technology investment should support the goal of a single-input, multi-use model. The days of data becoming stuck or siloed in different departments should become a thing of the past rather than something that is maintained for the sake of ease or continuity within the business. New processes and workflows should get rid of as much manual intervention as possible to remove the risk of human error.

3. Define data governance principles at the outset

Through effective data governance, firms should ensure consistent data capture, storage, and usage. They should implement clear guidance for the input and ongoing management of data. Data journeys should be understood via defined workflows and automated processes. This will ensure the timely and appropriate recording of essential data is achieved. Manual interventions should be reduced as much as possible to reduce human error. The practice of entering data into a variety of different systems must end, if accurate and timely data is to be maintained.

4. Get early and ongoing buy-in across the business

Staff across the business need to buy in to the data strategy and culture. While the top of the business should set the example, it is only by embedding a data-first culture throughout the business that the strategy will succeed. This means ongoing updates, education, use-cases, and data support for everyone interacting with the data so that it becomes habit, rather than a nice-to-have. People will then gain trust in the data and increased confidence in using it.

5. Aim to evidence and measure data value

Sustained investment in data must demonstrate tangible outcomes. Establishing clear KPIs and linking data initiatives to business performance is essential for wealth firms to demonstrate success for their data strategies.

With these five foundations in place, firms will be better positioned to leverage advanced capabilities, such as AI, unlocking further efficiencies and insights. Then, they will truly see how good data can transform their business operations and unlock new opportunities for growth.

Conclusion

Data management is becoming strategic for wealth firms, and accuracy, trust, and accessibility are increasingly critical to compliance, client relationships, and long-term growth.

The wealth industry is by no means the only sector trying to get to grips with its data. It is a challenge across almost all industries and sectors. However, wealth businesses face unique challenges.

Client trust depends on error-free reporting with timely, accurate data. Regulators increasingly demand robust, data-backed evidence of good outcomes.

Data has historically come behind wealth firms’ other transformation priorities, but this is changing. Firms recognise the importance of having reliable, clean data that is easily accessed and can support growth.

A wealth firm’s intensely personal relationship with its clients affords it a degree of knowledge that many other industries would envy. The data clients must share to enable the effective management of their wealth is likely comparable only to the information required by the medical profession. This creates both a responsibility and an opportunity: to use this data effectively to safeguard and grow a client’s wealth, but also to drive growth and enhance trust in wealth businesses.

Good data will support a wealth firm in its day-to-day business. Excellent data will aid in driving growth and allow a business to differentiate through increased opportunities and deeper, more trusted client relationships.

Interested in reading the full report? You can find it online here.

About the WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS)
This research is part of The Wealth Mosaic’s WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS), an ongoing and
developing research process, mixing online surveys and interviews, and focused exclusively on technology in the wealth management sector across the world.

Rather than a one-off research process, the WTIS will seek to build an ongoing program of research among wealth managers of different types across the world on a broad range of technology and related topics, building up an aggregated knowledge base of both qualitative views and perspectives as well as quantitative data points.

Discover our research collection!

• Optimising revenue management – read here
• AI and analytics in wealth management – read here
• From survival to reinvention: the new playbook for technology spend in wealth management – read here
• The European wealth playbook for growth – read here
• The role of technology for recruitment and retention within wealth management – read here
• The quest to become the best – becoming the trusted wealth coach and adviser – read here
• Productivity and growth in wealth management – read here
• Managing model portfolios on multiple platforms – read here

About Raw Knowledge
Raw Knowledge is a specialist data provider and data management firm under the Industrial Thought group of companies. 

Raw Knowledge began life as part of sister company Financial Software (FSL). Its team helped identify the need to improve industry access to quality excess reportable income (ERI) data and provided this to both its own and FSL clients. As its team, customer base and capabilities grew, Raw Knowledge separated from FSL in 2024 to begin offering its own solutions and services.  

Today, Raw Knowledge provides the most comprehensive ERI data in the market and helps businesses make better, data-driven decisions with its Managed Smart Data Platform. This pioneering data management platform creates a traceable and harmonised view of businesses’ disparate data sources to help them streamline and scale their operations, act faster on insights with fewer errors and maintain a clear audit trail.

About The Wealth Mosaic
The Wealth Mosaic is a UK-headquartered online solution provider directory and knowledge resource, focused specifically on the wealth management industry.

For wealth managers, the buy side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic is designed to enable discovery of key solutions, solution providers, and knowledge resources by specific business needs.

For solution providers and vendors, the sell side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic exists to support the positioning, exposure, and business development needs of these firms in a more complex and demanding market.

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