FOREWORD | OUR RESEARCH | 2020 AND COVID-19 | 1. TRANSPARENCY | 2. RELOCATION | 3. FAMILY & GENERATIONAL WEALTH | 4. THE ADVISER OF THE FUTURE | ABOUT BDO
INTRODUCTION | TECHNOLOGICAL ACCELERATION
UNDERSTANDING, TRUST AND A 360° PERSPECTIVE THE ADVISER OF THE FUTURE
Some advisers may therefore challenge, educate and encourage you to use technology, whilst balancing – and taking steps to counter – valid concerns about online security. If, however, you
Good advisers will not be alarmed, but rather embrace change. Despite the pace of technological progression, caution must be exercised in how you ‘rank’ the demands you place on your providers. Trust and human connection should remain at the forefront of your mind. Computers may have the upper hand of efficiency when dealing with the routine or mundane, but when special circumstances arise, says one family office adviser, it is someone and not something, who “has to step up, take a decision and be accountable”. Often times, you will appreciate and benefit from nuanced interaction with a human sounding board, and not want to be led simply by what an algorithm dictates. The best advisers will judiciously select the right technologies and educate themselves on how to use them, so look out for those that best augment human and technological into
TECHNOLOGICAL ACCELERATION Integration and collaboration founded on trust, expertise and a solutions-based mindset combine to form an
are a first-generation wealth holder who has built wealth by virtue of being a tech-savvy innovator, you will want and expect your adviser to keep pace and deliver efficiency on a scale that differs from more conventional wealth
initial blueprint for the adviser of the future. In any discussion of the future, however, technology must also be considered. “The technology revolution has been microwaved,” says one wealth management professional, and your advisers must keep pace.
“Conducting the orchestra is a big part of it. You don’t want the trombone playing during the prelude.”
management. “The sophistication of the new wealthy requires new service levels,” notes one European lawyer. Keep in mind that advisers will also have one eye on global tech giants who are well-positioned to enter the wealth management and advisory industry based on their scale and digital infrastructure capabilities. Some already offer financial products in one form or another, and their control of vast volumes of data may provide a competitive edge that will need to be monitored. Your existing advisers must treat technological adoption, therefore, not as a hygiene factor but as an existential imperative.
Times change, and technology drives change faster than anything else. In times of crisis, change accelerates yet further. If necessity is the mother of invention, then 2020 has shown us that crisis is the mother of adoption, with virtual and remote meetings becoming the norm, while video technology can now be used in the UK for witnessing will-signing. Further steps towards embracing greater use of technology will follow, as wealth owners expect advisers to maintain both their networks and their ability to provide counsel. If your advisers embrace innovation and seek to continually improve their technological capabilities, the level of service you receive will be more crisis-proof.
their approach. The private client- adviser relationship of the future will comprise a model centred on trust and soft, social skills combined with the harnessing of cutting-edge technologies.
“Technological adoption is not a hygiene factor, but an existential imperative.”
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