Making the transition to managed accounts

If you have identified the benefits of managed accounts and are considering them as a solution for your business, you will need to plan and manage the changes required to implement this new advice model. In our experience, businesses that are most successful in making the transition have embraced managed accounts and the technology that supports them as a strategic solution for their whole practice. These businesses also tend to generate revenues far beyond those firms who simply see managed accounts as a way to reduce their RoA compliance burden.

Getting the adviser’s perspective on transitioning to managed accounts

Three key considerations when transitioning to managed accounts

1. Client segmentation

In determining your client segmentation strategy, you need to ask: are managed accounts an investment solution for a particular group of your clients, or are you considering managed accounts as an advice model for the whole practice?

Once you have a defined approach for each of your client segments, you also have a proven, profitable strategy for attracting, retaining and servicing those segments.

2. Technology partner selection

There has never been a more important time for financial planning practices in Australia to embrace the right technology and utilise solutions such as managed accounts to deliver growth and minimise risk in a business.

The chosen platform needs to offer not only a suite of SMA models today, but have the ability and sophistication to continue to add models as the market, and models themselves, become more sophisticated.

Questions previously asked of fund managers, are now questions that should be asked of the platform itself:

• How does the platform trade assets?
• What assets can be traded?
• When are the assets traded to maximise market opportunities and minimise risk?
• How much does it cost to trade the assets?

In addition, we are seeing platforms focus more on client engagement than ever before. They recognise consumers are placing increased pressure on advisers to deliver a more transparent and digitally dynamic experience. Therefore, it is important to consider;

• What reporting options are available that can cater for all aspects of SMA models?
• What functionality is available to assist in regular or ad-hoc reporting?
• How interactive and dynamic is the Investor Portal experience?
• How can I track investor usage to ensure my engagement model is being valued?

3. Client roll-out program

Prioritising the client in the transition is key to its success and developing a clear roll-out programme will help with a significantly smoother transition.

Define your message
Taking time to define your message and have a practice wide understanding of how this will be articulated to clients will ensure clients will not be left confused by the change.

Develop an education program
Building a program of education prior to the establishment of a managed accounts advice model, through newsletters, special information pieces or even client seminars, will make the client review meeting more productive and enable the planner to more quickly establish trust.

Build a project plan
A project plan, broken into time-allocated stages with assigned team member responsibilities allows each stage to be rolled out in a manageable fashion. Correct project planning will ensure the momentum of the roll-out is not severely impacted by unforeseen issues nor impacts day to day workloads.

Post rollout analysis
Change provides a great opportunity to assess client satisfaction, and the effectiveness of your planning, team member involvement, and business processes. Any learnings can then be built into future campaigns.

For more information on making the transition to managed accounts and the latest research on the impact managed accounts usage can have on firm profit and revenue, visit www.praemium.com/upgrade