Five Keys to Successful Mobile Apps in Wealth Management. Advisors Want An App for That : Helping Them Go Further with Tablets and Smart Phones

Transcription

1 Five Keys to Successful Mobile Apps in Wealth Management Advisors Want An App for That : Helping Them Go Further with Tablets and Smart Phones

2 The scenario is a familiar one: A financial advisor is meeting with a client to discuss sensitive financial matters. She reaches into her overstuffed briefcase and takes out a stack of printouts, which may or may not be up-to-date by the time the meeting occurs. She then pulls out her laptop, waits impatiently for it to start up, and when it finally does, struggles to access several different systems requiring different passwords and multiple screens.the time lags and nervous chatter do nothing to allay the client s anxiety, nor do they strengthen the advisor s value proposition, which is already under strain. The inability to easily access the right information in an attractive format is no longer an inconvenience for advisors; it is a threat to their survival in a world where transparency and 24x7 access to information have become table stakes and quality of service and the ability to add value have become key differentiators. Mobile technology offers an obvious solution. Tablets, in particular, and the powerful mobile apps that run on them, allow wealth managers to provide superior service and to engage with clients at a deeper level, strengthening relationships as a result. They deliver these benefits by providing a unified front-end through which advisors can launch mobile apps that allow them to tap into multiple information flows, giving them access to the very latest data not to mention the capability to perform analyses, run reports, and to take action on information, such as placing buy and sell orders, all from a single screen. These capabilities allow advisors to add value by being responsive to client needs on the spot and this responsiveness is expected. Clients who use tablets themselves expect their advisors to keep up with the times and have little patience for those who rely on clunky laptops or mounds of printouts, not to mention that tablets are fun and intuitive. They are always on, easy to pass around a conference table, and their apps generally do not require training to use, making user manuals superfluous. Clients and advisors can also access shared information through tablets, helping them to collaboratively reach an appropriate balance between advisor-directed and self-directed investing. Where's Our App for That? The benefits of using mobile apps on tablets are clear, but adoption of this technology by wealth management firms has been slower than anticipated. Why? Distractions stemming from the financial crisis as well as deployment challenges have impeded many financial institutions from fully embracing mobile technology. Many analysts and consulting firms concur, however, that this situation must change soon if companies are to navigate the changes in client expectations and shifts in the competitive landscape that are reshaping the banking and wealth management industry. Accenture, Aite Group, CapGemini, PwC, and more have all issued reports that speak to the necessity of using smart phones and tablets as tools to address the needs of the increasingly discerning and demanding high-net-worth investor. These reports also contend that mobile technology provides a means for wealth management firms to become more agile. This capability is critical for responding to new competitors, the prevalence of which is growing as new technologies allow universal banks, insurance companies, and non-financial firms to offer financial advice and distribute packaged wealth management products with minimal upfront investment. The Five Keys: How to Deploy "Killer Apps" for Financial Advisors If analysts, consultants, and IT solution providers agree that mobility is a must have for future success in the wealth management industry, then why hasn t the deployment of mobile capabilities become more widespread? Partially, wealth management firms have had to deal with challenges resulting from the financial crisis. However, the primary cause of a lack of mobile adoption is that the cost and effort to build mobile apps raises significant concerns and ROI of such a deployment seems unclear. To overcome these challenges and address these concerns, our team has developed five keys to successfully deploying mobile solutions for wealth management. 2

3 1. Leverage Existing Capabilities and Infrastructure. Launching an independent effort to build new databases and systems to support mobile capabilities is almost always destined to fail. Why? Because size is not on your side. Financial services companies were among the first to exploit information technologies decades ago and have since invested vast amounts of time and effort to update and enhance those systems in order to keep pace with organic growth as well as to integrate acquisitions. Rebuilding these legacy platforms to introduce mobile capabilities is too complicated, too expensive, and it takes too long. Our experience concurs with analysts findings; the answer is to make the most of existing infrastructure investments not by coding from scratch but instead by introducing a mobile application layer on top of existing enterprise systems. This new layer seamlessly brings together existing capabilities that are critical to advisors and makes them available through a variety of mobile devices. Figure 1. Mobile Application Layer on Top of Existing Enterprise Systems 3

4 2. Define Services, Not Channels. Mobility is not a separate channel. In fact, financial services companies tend to think in terms of channels, but clients do not. When clients decide to check their account balances, transfer money, or perform other financial management functions, they simply do it in the most convenient way at any given time, whether that means logging onto a computer or accessing their accounts via a smart phone or tablet. The key is they want the experience to be consistent. The same applies to financial advisors. For them, a mobile solution is another way to do what they do, such as reporting, executing trades, and rebalancing portfolios, and they should be able to perform these functions in the same way regardless of what type of computer or mobile device they are using. In developing a mobile solution, wealth management companies should first define the services they want to make available to their advisors and clients. The goal then is to enable these services by developing an integrated mobile solution that can be deployed across any channel or device. This solution should also have a unified front-end that delivers a consistent, intuitive user experience. ipad 1:55 PM 100% Figure 2. Mobile App for Clients to Access Services 4

5 3. Use a Mobile Application Development Platform to Deploy a Single, Integrated Multi-Channel Solution. There are many mobile devices and many different operating systems on the market today. Clearly, wealth management companies should try to avoid creating custom code for ios, Android, Blackberry, and others, as well as building a separate set of HTML code for web-based versions. They should seek to circumvent another hassle, the need to tweak this code so that the solution displays properly on each type of mobile device, such as ipads versus Google Nexus versus smart phones. Mobile application development platforms, such as those offered by MicroStrategy, offer a way around this complexity by allowing companies to build, code-free, one mobile solution that works for all mobile form factors. Thus, the organization can build and update one instance and the system will propagate any changes and make device-specific adjustments. Building on such a platform also allows all of the functions an advisor performs to be integrated into a single multichannel solution, which is important for enhancing usability and productivity. The idea is to allow advisors to do research, perform analysis, build a portfolio, and execute trades all from one spot. This enhances efficiency by eliminating the need to switch back and forth among disparate systems and devices, which often require different passwords and have dissimilar user interfaces. Figure 3. Mobile Application Development Platform 5

6 4. Create One Solution That Can Be Used by Both Advisors and Clients. Some BI providers have developed extremely robust entitlement capabilities that allow companies to control what users see down to the microlevel. Through these capabilities, a single mobile solution can be used to deliver appropriate information to both advisors and clients. For instance, the advisor could rebalance the client s portfolio through his mobile app and the client could see what her portfolio now looks like through her slightly different mobile app. The advisor would have full access to the company s back-office systems but the client would only have access to her own account information, presented in a way that supports advisor-client collaboration. Notably, entitlements allow companies to create this single mobile solution without building several different systems, coding for advisors versus clients, or degrading the user experience by blocking out information that clients are not supposed to see. This approach makes the system much easier to maintain, which lowers total cost of ownership. Additionally, advisors and clients can both benefit from viewing similar information on their respective mobile devices at the same time. This facilitates productive discussions and helps advisors to be more effective in presentations. Creating a single mobile solution for both advisors and clients was once thought of as being desirable but out of reach. By using entitlements to preserve confidentiality, it has now become feasible and instrumental to success. ipad 1:55 PM 100% Figure 4. Mobile App for Advisors to Provide Services 6

7 5. Have a Deployment Strategy That Facilitates Rapid Response. The mobile space, by its very nature, moves fast. Wealth managers are already facing challenges from new entrants who are leveraging emerging technologies to take business away from them. Some are deploying sophisticated web and mobile applications to provide an enhanced user experience, which is effectively relegating banking services to the back end, making them a commodity. Others are providing a layer through which customers can do their own planning and trading, thus displacing advisors. More competitors are inevitably on the way too. Fortunately, technology has a flip side, it also affords new opportunities. Someday, someone will invent the next great mobile device or a vastly new and improved operating system. Those that adapt the fastest will gain an advantage. Wealth management companies, therefore, must be able to rapidly respond to new threats and opportunities. There are two ways to obtain this agility: 1. Hire the workforce required to rewrite massive amounts of code at a moment s notice or 2. Build mobile capabilities on an integrated architecture, such as the one MicroStrategy provides, that allows new solutions to be quickly deployed with minimal manual effort. Additionally, coding mobile apps would likely fall outside a wealth management firm s existing core competencies. Leveraging a mobile application development platform built by a company that specializes in mobile technology and that has already invested in the development work makes good business and financial sense. For wealth management firms, the following maxim applies: Don t waste time and money coding average apps; instead, focus on designing and quickly deploying great apps by making the most of a framework that already exists. Analytics, Grids, & Graphs Data Visualizations & Exploration Mobile Front-end to ERP/CRM Sell Products and Schedule Services Multimedia Content Mobile Information Channels Figure 5. Components of Powerful Wealth Management Apps 7

8 Conclusion: The New Necessity Many factors have held wealth management companies back from embracing mobile technologies more readily. Lengthy implementations, risk of obsolescence, and economic uncertainty have made companies slow to adopt new technologies. Today, however, many wealth management companies realize that enabling advisors to access their business applications when away from their desks is not an option; it is a must. New mobile application development platforms that employ drag-and-drop technology now enable companies to build mobile apps on top of existing CRM, trading, rebalancing, and other systems that are critical to advisors and to bring them seamlessly together all on one app. By adopting such a platform and observing the five keys, wealth management firms will be well-prepared to give their advisors access to business applications via their smart phones and tablet devices. This is the new necessity not only for staying competitive but also for helping advisors become more productive and effective and provide better client service than ever before. 8

9 contact Steven Bruggers VP, Financial Services Solutions MicroStrategy

10 Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a leading provider of enterprise software platforms for business intelligence (BI), mobile intelligence, and social intelligence applications. MicroStrategy's BI platform enables leading organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions. Companies choose MicroStrategy BI for its ease-of-use, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability. MicroStrategy's mobile intelligence platform helps companies and organizations build, deploy, and maintain mobile apps across a range of solutions by embedding intelligence, transactions, and multimedia into apps. MicroStrategy's social intelligence platform includes a number of applications that help enterprises harness the power of social networks for marketing and e-commerce, as well as a suite of free consumer friendly apps that use MicroStrategy's enterprise technologies. The MicroStrategy Cloud offering combines MicroStrategy and third-party software, hardware, and services to enable rapid, cost-effective development of hosted BI, mobile, and social applications.

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