It’s interesting that some excellent independent advisers are selling up to large insurance companies. The latest one, as reported in FTAdviser, quotes concerns about the sustainability of the business due to spiralling costs, mainly due to the increasing cost of regulation as a major reason.
This made me raise my eyebrows. Selling up is obviously an option for advisers but there are viable alternatives that enable independent advisers to keep their independence and run highly sustainable businesses. It’s all a matter of infrastructure.
With the rapid growth of specialist technological solutions that automate many previously time-consuming tasks, it’s now possible to let the ‘robots’ take away the things that traditionally suck the profit out of a business.
Admittedly most of these solutions are not without cost but, once set up to work at optimum level (yes, you do have to put some time in to do this but it’s short term pain for long term gain) the cost savings overall can be significant.
It’s also worth shopping around before jumping into bed with a one-size-fits-all technology provider. These can work out to be particularly pricey as many functions are charged at additional cost.
Although our main focus at PortfolioMetrix is managing investments, to get to the point of ensuring end clients have the right investment portfolio for their specific needs requires a raft of tools and compliance services. We’ve designed our own purpose built, integrated suite of tools that are all inextricably linked to producing the optimal outcome for clients. We’ve worked hard to make our tools and services very high quality because cutting corners at the start of a process is a sure fire way to lead to problems further down the line. The good news is that they are all integral to our overall service offering, so there are no hidden extra charges.
This ‘no added cost’ news often makes advisers raise their eyebrows…right before they break out a smile.
Happy days.
