The 3 C’s of a successful firm-wide digital strategy

May 05, 2016 by Zach Weidman

About the author

Zach Weidman

Enterprise account executive

Zach strives to help enterprise firms stay out in front of the pack with technology by helping to implement easy and repeatable internal processes. Zach enjoys learning more about a firms process to help fit technology and strategy together to achieve their goals.

Financial services is a pretty broad industry. The industry as a whole ranges from one-person firms that handle very holistic services to very large firms handling a very boutique niche, and vice versa. With firms of different sizes providing different services, strategies for setting up your internal structure are often very specific to each particular business.

The 3 C's

However, what I have learned through working with firms of all sizes is that, when it comes to a digital strategy, firms can see success by following these three C’s:

1. Consistency

Something I see quite a bit is a decentralized approach when it comes to picking and choosing technology within a firm. I believe this is due to firms wanting to recruit advisors and allow them more “choices” to offer them more freedom (possibly more than the wirehouses or other larger firms allowed). However, while choices can be beneficial, I believe this lack of consistency that can be detrimental to your firm.

A firm wide digital strategy allows you the ability to fully buy into a process with technology that fits your needs that also enables you to seamlessly teach the process to any advisor that joins the firm. An easy and repeatable process is beneficial for a firm, an advisor, and most importantly for a client. A consistent approach to bringing value to a client is much easier to control when everyone is utilizing the same tools.

2. Collaboration

A firm wide digital strategy enables employees to put their heads together and find best practices for bringing value to client relationships. Some firms I have had the chance to work with do re-occurring meetings where they discuss possible improvements to their process with the technology they utilize.

Download our free whitepaper to learn more about selecting the best FinTech solutions for your business.

This collaboration brings better adoption of the technology, and also enables the employees of the firm to learn from others who are utilizing the tools in the best way. This also allows for better inter-office collaboration where advisors and other staff can work on different cases at the same time while following the same workflows.

3. Cost

Most products tend to have a group rate or bulk discount, right? That same logic often applies to technology as well. The more individuals that are utilizing the same technology can traditionally help firms cut their technology costs. Therefore, the realized costs will go down, but do not forget about the unrealized costs you can see from an improved process and an improved client experience.

Implementing a successful digital strategy

When deciding on what FinTech tools to implement into your business workflows, consider the three C’s during the deliberation process. Engaging in a consistent, collaborative, and cost-cutting digital strategy to your technology will not only provide a better work experience for your staff, but will also enable advisors to provide a better client experience.

Click here to learn about the industry leading financial technology solutions offered by Advicent that enable your firm to implement a successful digital strategy, or call (855) 885-7526 to speak with an Advicent representative.