Financial advisors who continue to base their planning and investment processes on simple risk-tolerance questionnaires and closed-architecture product platforms are likely to fall behind their more forward-thinking, tech-enabled peers in the years ahead.
In fact, according to SS&C Advent's Kyle Fleming and Alex Hagmeyer, the most attractive wealth management clients in the marketplace today are already demanding much more. They want and expect their wealth advisors to deliver a highly personalized, holistic and responsive experience that cuts across investment management, tax mitigation, goals-based planning and wealth protection.
Fortunately for advisors, the pair suggests, ongoing technology development is making this lofty level of service delivery not only possible, but also scalable, for wealth managers. With the right blend of personal touch and technology tools, they argue, skilled advisors have never had as much opportunity for growth and success as they do today.
Fleming, a senior product manager, and Hagmeyer, senior director of quantitative research within SS&C ALPS Advisors, offered this suggestion during the morning showcase session at the BNY Mellon | Pershing Insite 2023 conference in Orlando, Florida.
According to the duo, wealth management professionals who want to grow and thrive in the future simply do not have a choice: They must evolve with the times or resign themselves to watching their firms decline in relevance — and revenue.
The Old Way Won't Cut It
As Hagmeyer and Fleming spelled out, the "typical" wealth management process starts with a risk questionnaire that assigns a client a tolerance score of some sort. Whether it's five or 50 questions in the survey, the pair explained, the goal of the exercise is to set a baseline for the amount of volatility that a given client could theoretically stomach before they start pounding down the advisor's door looking to get out of the market.
In addition to defining risk tolerance, wealth managers then traditionally layer on an income goal that is often (but not exclusively) about achieving short-term financial stability while simultaneously pursuing a targeted lifestyle in retirement.
"From there, the old-school wealth manager runs a bunch of Monte Carlo simulations that show what levels of risk-taking are needed to make achieving those goals likely, and that's really the end of the 'planning' process," Hagmeyer said. "That approach is effective, as far as it goes, but today's wealth management clients are quickly realizing they can go a lot further — and that they want to work with advisors who can facilitate that."
More sophisticated (and desirable) clients, the pair said, are already asking tough questions about how their wealth advisors are integrating their various goals and preferences into a holistic plan that maximizes the likelihood of success while minimizing tax burdens and eliminating unnecessary risk-taking.
This requires wealth advisors to evolve in different ways across their businesses, Hagmeyer and Fleming said, from client onboarding to investment management to vendor selection. Across all these areas, the need for greater personalization cannot be overstated.
The Emerging Approach
These factors mean that, already today but especially in the near future, the successful wealth management firm will be "as much a technology business as it is a financial advisory business," Hagmeyer said.
"Where the rubber hits the road is in matching a client's interrelated, evolving goals with their need to take portfolio risk. This is how we address specific goals over time in the context of holistic financial life," he said.
