With the huge market profile of the leading CRM vendors to the IFA marketplace like IntelliFlo and 1st The Exchange it is easy to forget the other players in the market place, yet there are some good applications out there beyond the 2 leading applications. That is not to say these two aren’t good applications in themselves. They are functionally very rich, backed by strong companies and led my good management teams but it always useful to have options. The market is actually very crowded – one distributor told me they reviewed 23 systems before making a choice – It is unusual to need to look that far and wide as the time taken to do so is disproportionate to the benefit in all but the largest projects – but it is worth looking at the top 5 or 6 players to get a fuller picture of the market place.
So who else is worth considering?
One company I think often overlooked is Plum. Plum doesn’t have the sales muscle of its largest rivals so won’t get involved in some of the larger tender processes out there and as a result has a much lower profile than its competitors. However it is a functionally rich system that has just had a facelift and is looking very good. If you talk to the product providers who integrate to them they are often cited among the most nimble and first to adopt new standards. Smaller companies with 5 advisers or so would do well to look at this as an option.
Senro from Solution 4 is another company sometimes overlooked. Senro is used by a number of the Openwork Advisers and is a good little application. Its usability is high and they have a real focus on how brokers can get the most out of their system – adding extra services such as data entry for paper based commission forms, where they take on the hassle of typing in the paper commission sheets into their system. Currently Senro is more focused on the mortgage market place due to its heritage and the integrations it has in place. Put they have some really exciting plans and come 2010 they will have a strong, ASP offering.
In contrast to Senro, True Potential get a lot of market attention. They have a big sales force who I believe are commission only and therefore hungry and pushing their message hard. To be fair they have a nice application and it’s a SaaS type solution (as is Senro) and the market needs a credible SaaS solution to rival IntelliFlo’s dominance here. For me True Potential is easy to either rule in or out as their business model is so different to the others. If you want to pay as a percentage of your income rather than a flat licence fee then this is very a persuasive option. Paying a percentage fee enables your costs to scale up and down with your success which is very tempting in today’s market – but in making the decision be conscious that the fees scale up as well as down and you will be tied in for a number of years.
There are many other vendors worthy of consideration – too many to discuss in detail here. If however you do want more detail then AT8 provide a brief profile on some of the leaders under our Infoblog series in our library. A more detailed report is available for sale as well – for more information email marketing@at8-group.com.
No procurement review would be complete without IntelliFlo or 1st The Exchange but these are not the only options and the addition of another couple of firms in a procurement decision is highly recommended.
