Last week in Sydney, at Futuro Financial Services’ 2017 Business Directions Forum, about 20 of the network’s financial planning business owners saw a demonstration by online advice provider Map My Plan.
Map My Plan founder Paul Feeney showed how robo-enabled advice can provide an efficient way for financial planning businesses to deliver a level of service to so-called C and D clients, and fulfil the firms’ obligations to provide a service in return for charging a fee.
The business owners quickly developed a clear understanding of the commercial potential for such an approach. Futuro chairman Dennis Bashford and managing director Paul Kelly are in ongoing discussions with Feeney about adopting Map My Plan as part of the Futuro value proposition for advisers.
Map My Plan is one of a wave of emerging applications for advisers. The use of technology to increase business efficiency and improve the delivery of advice will be one of the most important factors in separating successful businesses from unsuccessful ones, says Andrew Inwood, principal and founder of research group CoreData.
CoreData and Professional Planner are seeking advisers’ views on the use of technology – how it is being used now and how it will be used in the future – in a new Adviser Technology and Investments Survey. Participants in the survey will go into a draw for two business-class return flights to Europe, and one of five $1000 Flight Centre gift cards.
“Harnessing the power of the digital revolution is going to be the difference [for] financial services [firms that want to] drive down the cost of running their business, increase their customer engagement and insure their business against process and regulatory change,” Inwood says. “This challenge – which starts at the licensee level and filters down to the individual practice and eventually customers – is going to fundamentally change advice and advice delivery.”
Inwood says the research is designed to “find out how advisers are adopting and using the new tools, what they are experiencing, and how customers are benefitting from these changes”.
“This research will be combined with the Digital Intimacy report – customer research that looks at how end customers are experiencing technology in financial services, what they want and what the gaps are,” he says.
The results of this survey will be reported in Professional Planner and a short summary of the results will be available to everyone who participates via Professional Planner.
