Digital technologies are revolutionising the Asset Management industry. From the development of digital first customer journeys to the automation of critical back-office functions, the influence of digital is now being felt across every aspect of these organisations. It’s no surprise why, KPMG report that between 2017 and 2020, digitally mature organisations delivered 25% higher revenue, 31% higher EBITDA and 11% higher net promoter scores than less digital competitors (KPMG – Getting Digital Right Report 2020). However, while digital transformation is a clear priority, another recent survey highlighted that the majority of Asset Managers do not believe that they are actually meeting the digital expectations of their clients. 

With this is mind, we share five key initiatives we believe senior leaders within Asset Managers should be prioritising when it comes to improving the digital experience of their clients. 

1. Develop a technology strategy to simplify infrastructure, application and data architecture 

A scalable, flexible, efficient client-centric solution will require a well-constructed future state technology architecture that integrates the front, middle and back-office. To do this, a view will need to be taken across the organisation to decide on whether legacy systems are replaced or modified. This will then enable the organisation to identify the areas where they can leverage or develop more innovative, strategic technology solutions for customer touchpoints, delivering an improved experience.

2. Accelerate onboarding and streamline back-office processes  

Simplification of the client lifecycle is often complicated in Asset Management as a result of the nuances between different business lines and the use of multiple third-party administrators or transfer agents to complete parts of the process. Where there is a very fragmented experience across a business it may be logically challenging to deliver a single refined flow. 

Smooth and efficient client onboarding and periodic review is critical to accelerate time to revenue, deliver against ever increasing client expectations and to enable scalability as your organisation grows.

3. Make data accessible internally  

Asset Managers hold a great deal of valuable data on their clients, however accessing this data can be a considerable challenge in most organisations.  

Many organisations are implementing data lakes and data warehouses to remove silos and share data more effectively between both the public and private sides of the business and between asset classes. Making the data accessible is a critical first step towards aggregating and enriching data with external sources to create valuable information and deliver unique insights enabling better servicing of clients.

4. Empower your clients with an Investor portal 

Providing a consistent mechanism for all client communications and a single site for your clients to interact with your organisation is becoming a must-have as the pace of change increases. An investor portal not only enables this single point of contact but creates a tool for continuous improvement. Over time, greater functionality and capability can be built into the tool, creating a differentiator in the marketplace which allows direct interaction with your clients and provides a single conduit for the collection of critical client data. 

5. Deliver automated reporting – remove manual processes, enabling scalability 

Clients want interactive reporting, they want to be able to see the value of their portfolio in real time, watch trades appear in their portfolio whilst awaiting settlement, and get the latest information when they want it, rather than at the end of the month. As a result, reporting requirements continue to increase in complexity and volume. Where manual intervention is required, errors are inevitable which may lead to costly remediation and a lack of client confidence. Automation in the reporting space is critical but equally important are the workflows to ensure that reports are delivered to clients securely, right-first time and with a minimum of manual intervention. 

Making the initiatives a reality 

Delivering against this broad spectrum of initiatives is a significant challenge requiring experienced transformation resources to help define your strategy, structure your programmes of work and ultimately support and drive implementation and change execution at pace within the organisation. Look out for our next blog on how best to support strategic change and deliver successful transformation.