Australian Unity pushes benchmarking

AU personal financial services chief executive Steve Davis said the Best Practice for a Financial Planning Business program was developed in consultation with successful advisers and industry experts to provide a framework for best practice.

“In developing this program we first looked at finding out the best way to perform each task in the financial planning process, who should ideally perform that task, and finally, how long it should take to complete,” he said.

“The ‘Practice Optimisation’ software, which is the lynchpin of the program, is easy to use. Our advisers simply answer the questions in the Best Practice spreadsheet and then a results dashboard is automatically produced so the adviser can easily and quickly see the areas which need addressing.

“It also helps advisers who are in a strong growth phase to determine when they are likely to need to add staff or other resources,” he said.

Davis said the program is part of the 100 adviser-strong licensee’s broader Xplan-optimisation initiative and complements other efficiency measures that AU has adopted.