Does the IFA electronic front office exist?
Perceived wisdom in the industry has it that few IFAs have invested in technology at the Point of Sale. The story goes that investment has been made in the Back Office at a reasonable rate with suppliers such as 1st and IntelliFlo boasting impressive user bases, but that in the front office the investment has been weak outside the largest of distributors.
Examining this theory further shows it might not be so black and white. True, full, auditable, end to end sales systems in the IFA market are rare. These are often expensive and rarely available as ‘off the shelf’ packages in the way Back office solutions are; hence take up is minimal for IFAs who frequently are not sufficiently resourced to implement such solutions. Smaller niche solutions are used at point of sale though and often valued by the end user. In the L&P market, for example quotations, are performed increasingly electronically via extranets and the major portals such as Exweb and Assureweb (admittedly usually back at the office rather than in front of clients). More and more frequently advisers are using sales aids, such as asset allocation tools, found on providers’ extranets. In the mortgage industry sourcing systems such as Trigold and Mortgage Brain are commonly used by advisers and often in front of the client – despite the claim that advisers won’t use technology as “it is a barrier between them and the client”.
So if technology is used in the sales process why the lack of comprehensive Point of Sale solutions in the IFA space?
I put this largely down to this market having been driven for years by the bigger distributors who have all had unique sales processes and in the past the money to tailor systems to meet these processes. True packages, that could be taken off the shelf and implemented with a few days effort simply haven’t existed, and neither have the pricing structures from suppliers to make these systems affordable to the majority of IFAs. This is however changing as traditional Back office players like 1st bring out new products like Adviser Evolution and the existing point of Sale providers like Focus and Crystal ‘productise’ their offerings. The business benefits of implementing more complete solutions in the front office are clear and soon maybe more achievable for many IFAs.
Written by Mark Loosmore - Visit Website