Technology tools enable business growth. But they aren’t standalone investments. They must work in conjunction with your firm’s value proposition. By combining our “we’ve walked in your shoes” experience with technology expertise and evidence gathered through real-world use cases, we create and execute a technology strategy that adheres to your business goals and helps differentiate you in the marketplace.
Don’t make technology decisions in a vacuum. The best technology investments align with the firm’s value proposition and strategic goals and are backed by evidence that proves they’ll work in the real world. We’ll help you develop a long-term technology plan that will give your team the tools they need to increase productivity and enhance both advisor and client experience.
Example projects
Current State Assessment
Wealth Management Platform Planning
Vendor Selection
Keeping up with the pace of technological change is daunting, but having an out-of-date tech stack holding you back is even worse. We’ll help you invest in the right updates to keep your legacy technology stack efficiently delivering insights and capabilities that enhance both the advisor and client experience.
Example projects
Accounting and Custody Modernization
Data Platform Modernization
Digital Client Experience Modernization
Client Reporting Modernization
CRM Implementation and Enhancement
Client/Account Management Modernization
Trading/Rebalancing System Modernization
Our fully customizable technology implementation solution provides C-level oversight, management and implementation for high-growth organizations looking to innovate within their firm.
OCTO clients have access to our entire bench of expertise and solutions augmenting their current team at a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house.
Learn more about OCTO
Working in a heavily regulated industry adds a layer of stress on wealth management leaders. You can’t get away from it, but we know how technology can streamline your compliance requirements.
Example projects
Reporting and Data Management (Regulatory filings such as 13F and ADV and compliance reviews and audits)
Compliance Tech Vendor Due Diligence and Tool Assessment
Technology Software Implementations and Tool Integration (Portfolio monitoring and risk management tools, communication capturing and archiving, and employee oversight and training)
Cybersecurity Review and Outsourced IT
The hardest part of almost any project is the change. Project planning, user testing, and comprehensive communications can spell the difference between the successful adoption and utter failure of a technology integration. We assemble all the elements you need to ensure a smooth transition across the firm.
Example projects
Change Governance
Project Management
Internal Communications
Many firms don’t have internal resources for the specific technology projects they need to complete. We can act as your CTO to manage technology, help you outsource key projects to the right experts, and even identify talented experts to add to all levels of your team.
Example projects
Fractional Operations/Outsourced Resources
Operations and Oversight Management
Staff Augmentation (F/T and Temporary) for Executive, Operations, and Administration Expert Placements
Staff Augmentation for Project Execution
It’s in the best interests of every firm to establish a robust process library and implement a process governance routine to manage it. This investment protects the firm’s and its clients’ assets. We help you design and build governance structures that will ultimately support internal training and empower you to manage internal risk and assure the safety and soundness of your processes.
Example projects
Process and Workflow Design
Control Design and Testing
Issue Remediation
Often overlooked, technology is a key factor in firm valuation; and a potential headache after the deal closes. We help both buyers and sellers evaluate technology ahead of a deal and we help firms marry their separate systems after a deal, saving you time and reducing stress throughout the process.
Example projects
Pre-deal Due Diligence
Post-deal Technology Integration
Marketing and Brand Audit
All our work is backed by research and real-world use cases, but sometimes our clients need to know something specific. That’s why we also conduct research on behalf of our clients. Whether you want to know what your clients think about working with you or broader industry trends, we can execute in-depth research studies to generate results that will support strategic decision making.
Example projects
Wealth Management Industry Insights and Benchmarks
Client Insights and Benchmarks
Advisor Feedback
We recently helped a large RIA focused on the UHNW market that wanted to create its own unique digital client experience from the ground up by building its own custom client portal.
With our extensive experience in digital, we know how digital platform vendors rank in critical categories, their strengths and shortfalls, and what emerging technology is on the horizon. Our support provided this RIA with insightful guidance on the current industry innovations as well as a comparison of the ways similar firms are applying the latest tools within their own practices so that they could make informed decisions on their best course of action.
As a result, the RIA created a truly unique portal providing features and functionality not seen in off the shelf tools. The new digital tools enhanced the client experience to give the firm a competitive edge.
When a mid-sized, rapidly growing RIA found themselves trying to create a connected client portal experience, we stepped in to help. Their goal was to move from multiple disparate portal solutions (clients had to log in to four separate client facing portals) into one unified client facing experience.
Our digital client experience assessment is the start of a firm-wide digital transformation journey. We evaluate the touchpoints within the entire wealth management lifecycle to identify areas of opportunity for growth. For this project, we completed a detailed assessment of their current capabilities, a gap analysis of desired functionality, and then identified what they wanted to improve and compared to vendor solutions that met their needs to recommend a solution.
By understanding their current platform and the opportunities available for optimizing the client experience and the vendor solutions to match, the RIA successfully selected a vendor that could achieve their desired outcomes.
A mid-sized RIA focused on innovation found that they needed a new way to drive adoption of their new digital client portal and they asked us for solutions.
We developed training and communications programs as well as provided guidance on best practices. To find the right match for their users, we evaluated potential digital adoption tools, video options and knowledge base solutions. Finally, we defined metrics to measure their success and showed them how to use the data to drive adoption and results.
With a focus on the client experience as an extension of the in-person experience with the advisor, the RIA increased adoption and exceeded their clients’ digital expectations which strengthened their advisor-client relationships.
A hybrid RIA-broker/dealer sought our support as they moved from an outdated on-premise CRM system to a modern integrated cloud platform.
We started with a complete vendor analysis and needs assessment, a process that typically includes an analysis of business needs, user persona identification, and data needs, and moves into current and future workflow analyses. Once the analysis was complete, we implemented a full data migration, and CRM configuration process in parallel with an organization data strategy project. Our CRM migration process concludes with testing, training and a BAU transition plan for ongoing maintenance and support.
Once the CRM migration was complete, this hybrid RIA-broker/dealer had a modern, more effective CRM platform that was highly integrated with data architecture and marketing tools.
A large RIA found themselves in this exact situation and wanted to automate the data entry of leads into their CRM from an outdated manual process.
Our expert guidance helps automate the collection and population of prospect data from multiple sources into your CRM, shortening the lead to client timeline. Imagine that when a prospect downloads a white paper on your website, subscribes to your newsletter, or visits a landing page via a social media marketing campaign, their name and email address automatically flow into the CRM to be captured as a lead. To make it a reality for this RIA, we first defined requirements and workflows and then mapped data fields between two systems through APIs in order to integrate their marketing software with their CRM.
The automated flow of prospect data from their marketing software eliminated the manual work and enabled staff to focus on more value-add activities.
Capturing those requirements from your CRM users allows you to configure a custom, 360-degree household view. Recently, a large RIA’s CRM users were frustrated by having to navigate to multiple systems to access disjointed client information.
To improve the situation for the CRM users, we defined requirements to bring critical client demographic, account, and portfolio information into the CRM. From there, we designed and developed a custom page within Salesforce to access the data in a single view.
Thanks to our efforts, this RIA’s advisors can access critical client information in a single view; saving time and improving both the client and advisor experience.
One hybrid RIA recently leaned on our expertise to build a future-ready data/technology platform, reduce legacy applications footprints, simplify data exchange interfaces, reduce manual processes and leverage automation to provide customized user experiences.
Our process included a review of the hybrid RIA’s existing architecture. That allowed us to identify the pain points and overlap, evaluate the manual processes and provide an analysis of their data interfaces and selected target platform.
Instead of a cloudy picture with no way to make informed decisions, the client gained a clear understanding of the path to improvement and had a plan to move forward.
A mid-sized hybrid RIA-Broker/Dealer came to us with non-standard data that was not uniform and was procured from fragmented data sources across multiple vendors. This meant they had no consistent source data integration or single “version of the truth” or data ownership.
To remedy this situation, we defined the data architecture and delivered a plan to build a single centralized data repository to procure and store data from various sources.
This hybrid RIA-broker/dealer now has a uniform data source and single source of the truth to enable data sharing and analytics from a centralized data store.
Recently, a highly innovative RIA called on us to help them consolidate their multiple data stores into a single model and reduce their manual extraction from multiple sources to support various business processes.
By developing a consolidated superset of data from multiple custodians into an entity relationship model, we consolidated their data fields into a uniform view.
This RIA now has a singular view of customer account positions in a single data model that is easy to access and build analytics reports against.
Recently, we supported a large RIA with a focus on financial planning that saw its report usage and satisfaction was low. Their teams were not using reporting tools or happy with the output. Plus, the design, layout, and content did not have a good flow; the structure was clunky; and the reports were confusing for their clients.
We conducted an independent analysis of current reports including an advisor assessment and net promoter score survey, known as voice of the advisor and analyzed report usage to understand reporting needs and identify improvements. The information gained in this effort allowed us to develop report packages that address various client segments – snapshots to full detailed reports. With a comprehensive rollout plan, we collaborated with operations and compliance teams to establish who would create the news reports going forward. The final step was to train the team on report contents and how to speak intelligently about and understand data behind the report. The live training sessions were recorded and saved on the Intranet for current and new advisors.
The newly configured report elements better meet clients’ needs and tell the story the RIA wanted to communicate to clients. Because inaccurate data was cleaned up, clients can have more trust in reports and the easier-to-use reports enabled advisors to easily distinguish what was in the report and which was best for specific clients.
A multi family office advisory serving UNHW family office and foundation clients came to us with some complex reporting needs. The way the reports were coded and configured created inaccuracies in report data, rendering the reports unusable.
We worked closely with a stakeholder Portfolio Manager who provides insight into needs. Through deep dive working sessions, we dug into the story they were trying to tell with the reports and gained an understanding of the process. That allowed us to develop a process driven design with significant behind-the-scenes configuration. We modified their asset classification mapping and schema and added new attributes to reports, custom user defined fields, and grouping in the system to align to the structure. Finally, we trained the internal team to manage, design and build reports directly in the system in-house.
As a result of our efforts, the multi family office was able to use the reports, gain more efficiency in creating reports for client meetings, attained higher client satisfaction with the data presented, and became able to quickly create and fix reports in house. They also benefited from the reduced time to prepare reports for client meetings; a process that went from a few days to a few hours because the build process was easier with defined goals.
When a mid-sized, well established RIA wanted to fix a data aggregation and reporting process that was inefficient and dependent on a single individual, they came to us. We helped them look at ways their reports could be updated and enhanced
Our first step was to evaluate their current workflows, reports, and vendor options so that we could provide an outside objective perspective of current data and reporting. From there, we recommended outsourcing data aggregation and reconciliation to a third-party service provider. Finally, we completed a deep dive analysis of the state of their historical portfolio and account performance data.
The new approach enabled this RIA’s internal team to focus on core competency value add activities. With upgraded reporting they could de-risk current processes and positioned the firm to more easily migrate to a new system in the future.
A large regional bank approached us after their acquisition of a bank with a nascent in-house direct indexing capability. They didn’t know what it would take to bring the acquired DI business to enterprise scale and standards; and this, whether they should build in-house or partner with an outside vendor.
We conducted a full scale analysis to understand the current state capabilities. We compared the bank’s current product to several market leaders and identified what work would be needed to bring it to enterprise scale and make the product competitive in the market. Additionally, we conducted a full analysis of their options: build internally or partner with a platform provider and included the business case for both. After the analyses we gave our recommendation for the best way forward.
As a result of our detailed analyses, the bank gained a clear understanding of what they had acquired, the problem statement, and potential paths forward, which allowed them to make an informed decision that was in alignment with their overall strategy and the best interests of their business.
Recently, a breakaway RIA needed to build certainty around its technology and infrastructure transition plan. They asked us to analyze the plan, identify ways to mediate risks and opportunities to accelerate the plan and in parallel, evaluate what the portfolio product could look like in the future.
Through our analysis of the breakaway process, post-breakaway product enhancements and the technology investment needed to expand product capabilities, we designed both product and technology roadmaps that included data, capabilities and more. We defined a two to three-year agile approach technology and product roadmap.
This analysis gave clear direction to all levels of the firm from the Board of Directors to senior leaders to project teams for implementing the plan to breakaway and actionable guidelines of what it will take to expand their product to meet their vision. It also provided a third-party view that could challenge internal assumptions and help increase odds of success.
When a large RIA decided it was time to rework its disjointed and inefficient portfolio management process that had become bogged down by operations overhead, highly manual processes and data from multiple sources, they called us for help.
Our thorough analysis of the current state uncovered clear pain points and made it possible for us to identify the opportunities to improve. After the analysis we took several more actions to complete the project. We adopted new ways of doing things – moving from SMA to UMA, designed ports within the UMA, conducted a vendor analysis and selected the right match, enacted a project plan conversion and implemented the new system, ultimately enabling the new capability of UMA.
The RIA condensed its operational tasks and automated portfolio management functions which reduced portfolio management servicing functions from hours to minutes. Thanks to the time savings and operational efficiency, the firm’s advisors have more time to spend on revenue generating activities.
Recently, a large bank wealth management firm that manually generated investment proposals wanted our help in implementing a modern approach. Its lengthy and error prone process of manual data entry into a spreadsheet that calculates investment fees, modeled asset allocation, and analyzed risk tolerance led to proposals that differed from team to team and were not on brand or compliant.
We worked closely with the operations and advisory teams to define proposal requirements, evaluated vendors. With that planning information in place, we selected and implemented a proposal generation system tool that automatically generates analytics for risk, fees, and asset mix and creates consistent, branded and compliant proposals.
By eliminating the manual data entry, the firm immediately began saving time and reducing errors in calculations and dramatically decreased the time to get a proposal to a client. All proposals are now marketing and compliance approved, presentable polished pieces. Advisors are happy to deliver an elevated and consistent experience.
A hybrid broker-dealer/RIA wanted our support as they developed the financial planning aspect of their business. The RIA was a new business unit and they were in the process of developing a comprehensive wealth management platform. They wanted to find the best approach to developing their offering using current tools and wanted guidance on how to unlock value from the tools and deliver financial planning from a business perspective.
Our support helped the hybrid broker-dealer/RIA understand the financial planning process from beginning to end. We asked and answered critical questions that the new business unit could use to drive decision making, such as “what is the value proposition?”, “what can be done with existing tools?”, “how can they maximize the value of a specific tool?”, and “what does it take to implement new financial planning technology?”
At the end of the project, the hybrid broker-dealer/RIA had a more comprehensive financial planning process, supported by the right technology. The process will lead to stronger client relationships, client retention, and unlock opportunities to expand those relationships.
One rapidly growing RIA asked for our support in adding in-depth tax planning, behavioral finance, estate planning, retirement/Social Security planning and stock options management to its core planning tool.
We built the business case for adding specialty services and identified specific technology needs. We then selected several tools to integrate with the core planning system and support the expanded offerings.
With the new specialty planning tools, the firm differentiated their service and expanded client relationships using an integrated, flexible and expandable technology platform. The new offerings did not add significant new manual processes.
A large regional bank merger wanted to ensure they got it just right as they navigated combining two different core trust accounting platforms into either one of the incumbent platforms or a third new platform.
Our full scale approach included developing a comprehensive RFP, Identifying potential vendors, creating demo use case scenarios and a schedule. We distributed the RFP to four vendors covering five different solutions. Using our defined scoring methodology, the assessment team analyzed RFPs and demonstrations. Our final step was to narrow the selection for deep dive discovery and make a final recommendation to firm leadership.
With the merger of two mid-sized banks, resources were focused on other strategic activity. Using the F2 Strategy team to run the entire RFP process and vendor selection on its behalf and support the subsequent implementation allowed the bank merger to make progress on critical systems upgrades despite internal team time constraints.
A large investment firm did not have the ability to keep track of holdings of the same stock managed at the same time by two different portfolio managers. They had developed their own structure within the trust accounting system and wanted our support for finding an alternative account structure to better manage the assets.
We researched the history of how they got to the current structure and identified current and potential future issues impacting the portfolio management process. The insight gleaned from our analysis led us to recommend that the firm transition to a UMA-like structure within the trust accounting platform.
As a result of the project, the large investment firm gained insights into the governance of their account hierarchy and cash flow issues that enabled them to build out a more focused proprietary solution.
Recently, an RIA serving family offices and foundations had engaged with a new vendor to automate manual workflows aggregating alternative investment data and get data from unstructured sources into a normalized format for use in other systems and needed our implementation support and guidance.
We helped develop business requirements and an integration plan to successfully implement a new platform. With our comprehensive approach, we completed data analysis, data mapping, testing and feedback with the vendor. We also compared newly-automated process data to manually-entered data to validate output as meeting requirements.
With an integrated platform producing normalized data integration, this RIA saved time and increased data quality that allows its team to perform other more critical functions as well as have deeper client conversations. They also have enhanced additional analytic and business intelligence capabilities to manage client portfolios and data.
We supported a mid-sized RIA as it worked to improve the quality of support and security they receive as their technology footprint and organization grows.
This project required a detailed assessment of the RIA’s technology footprint, including its on premise and cloud tech stacks, user distribution and future needs. We used our network of managed service providers to match the right vendor to their specific technology support needs.
The outcome of this project was a more efficient, secure, stable technology operating platform with better security and employee onboarding and support for RIA now and as it grows.
Our approach helped an emerging RIA with limited to no internal technology support that was unable to adequately support growth of their business.
We assessed the RIA’s technology application support needs and created an internal technology support organization designed to support the user community. We then created the framework, roles and responsibilities, reporting lines and job requirements. Our final step was to interview and help hire people to fill the roles.
The RIA now has a team to provide technology and internal application support that confidently meets the needs of their growing business.
A turnkey advisor platform came to us when it needed to improve its overall cybersecurity program. Its firewalls were implemented, configured and monitored inconsistently and they didn’t have consistent cybersecurity education or policies.
After a careful assessment of the current state of the firm’s cybersecurity, we worked with its existing vendors to improve the implementation and monitoring of firewalls and brought in a new vendor specializing in cyber security policies, oversight and education to fill in the gaps in those areas.
With a stronger program that offers more consistency and better monitoring, the firm’s risk is reduced and more employees understand how to protect systems and data.
A national hybrid RIA aggregator with $6 billion of assets under management had a vision to lead the hybrid industry in automation and efficiency but needed our support to create a centralized data platform to support its mission.
F2 Strategy partnered with the firm’s CTO on a 12-month project to transform their data architecture while maintaining exceptional client and advisor service along the way. The work began with strategic meetings and yielded a clear vision that allowed our experts to pinpoint gaps and required changes. From there, we fixed underlying systems (CRM), stood up a data strategy and governance committee, supplemented vendors, and built the integrations and framework.
The resulting robust operating model is now used to optimize the advisor and client experience. Advisors enjoy a truly integrated ecosystem that leverages “one source of truth” across multiple systems limiting mistakes, redundancies and manual support. Additional benefits the firm reaps include faster billing, a reduction in vendor licensing costs and operational costs as well as real time visibility into the health of business and an increase in firm valuation.
A multi-family RIA with over 400+ clients and $13 billion of assets under management was delivering inconsistent and inefficient support to its advisors which was stifling the firm’s growth. The RIA’s leadership asked us to design a best-in-class operations structure with a clear path to scale that empowers employees to deliver exceptional service that drives organization growth.
F2 Strategy partnered with the COO over three months to optimize the operational team structure and create a platform grounded in defined processes, measurable accountability, automation, and quality data. Our process included validating the current state, comparing the firm against industry benchmarks and designing a new organizational structure for operations. We spent a lot of time interviewing team members and evaluating high friction areas such as onboarding, money movement and portfolio management tasks to make informed decisions.
The resulting new organization structure eliminated silos, process inefficiencies and associated bottlenecks. The operations team was streamlined and able to be reduced by two full-time employees. Staff were matched with new job descriptions and annual metrics aligned to core strengths. The new team approach is leading to better client outcomes through efficient processes with the right resources focused on adding value throughout the wealth management lifecycle. The firm expects the new structure to support future growth without the need to add as many resources as before.
An RIA with $4 billion in assets under management historically underspent on technology, leaving it with an immature platform with bifurcated data, limited integrations and no digital experience. The firm was uncompetitive and client revenue suffered. It needed a comprehensive roadmap to modernize the technology stack with a clearly articulated execution plan in a calculated sequence to facilitate a more effective and profitable client experience and achieve its fee revenue goal of $100 million.
For three months, F2 Strategy partnered with the firm to paint a clear picture of what the industry is doing and provide an unbiased perspective on where the firm is on and off track. We developed a long-term vision that focused on the technology and capabilities the firm needs to amplify business outcomes. We also conducted a comprehensive evaluation of their vendors and recommended a clear path on how and when to eliminate or switch.
The new multi-year technology roadmap with clear definition in scope, costs and impact is driving alignment among executives and advisors. They now have guidance on their technology investments and can make the right strategic decisions on when to buy, build or outsource capabilities to optimize outcomes for the firm. Additionally, the RIA is benefiting from cost savings on renegotiated contracts, elimination of duplication and streamlined client experience. All of these benefits help support an increase in its private equity valuation.
Schedule a discovery call where we can learn more about your needs and define ways we can tackle them together.
