But to achieve all of this, and to future-proof our industry we’ll need to prioritise efficiency. And to unlock greater efficiency, we – as a sector – need to focus on better integration.

Here’s why.

Reframing our thinking

Helping advisers operate efficiently has been a focus for the sector for as long as advice has been delivered.

Over the past 20 years, platforms have helped us make significant progress in this regard by improving advisers’ scalability, introducing online processes and creating ‘one stop shops’ for many core advice processes.

But now there’s more that can, and must, be done to build on this foundation.

In an increasingly digitised sector, we must work together across the technology, workflows and touchpoints that form part of advisers’ businesses, including platforms, so that they’re all working seamlessly together to support each other’s purpose and strengths.

This isn’t about ‘vertical’ integration – making sure siloed products within a single provider’s product suite works together – but rather ‘horizontal’ integration: spanning and bridging different solutions and services.

At its most fundamental level, this will remove inefficiencies – big and small – that all add up to be a drain on time, and therefore profitability.

For example, greater integration and sharing of data across the technology advisers use to deliver advice, both initially and on an ongoing basis, reduces the need for constantly ‘re-keying’ data and allows them to leverage technology to support the advice process, whilst focussing on building relationships across clients and families.

That access to data could then be utilised to an even greater extent in future as AI develops to identify ‘next best actions’, analysing patterns in data, risks, opportunities and supporting customised recommendations and alerts to save time and deliver better outcomes.

Closer, together

I believe that everyone in the sector shares the goal of efficiency through integration – and we’re certainly on the same page about good outcomes.

The main hurdle we’re going to have to overcome is looking past the simple, understandable barrier of protecting own interests, and working together towards these common goals.

To a degree, we’re going to be pushed to do this by the demands of the market.

There’s also the driver of regulation – most recently in the form of Consumer Duty.

As my colleague Alastair Black, our Head of Savings Policy, has eloquently stressed so many times, actually achieving the Duty requires cross-industry collaboration.

We didn’t need an excuse to start working closer together on a wider set of issues, but our ongoing compliance efforts here will certainly give us an opportunity to start new conversations on collaboration, or deepen existing ones.

Ideas to action

What could better integration look like in practice?

In many cases, it’s going to start with platforms providing a smoother flow of data to the ecosystem of technology that advisers use today. Providing that data out, and also consuming data in, to make the execution of advice easier for advisers; delivering their customer proposition.

Making these integrations, through APIs, are the technical building blocks. The real opportunity is to go beyond the obvious and necessary and think creatively to craft new services that improve the end-to-end adviser experience.

This is a key focus for us at abrdn, and something we’re prioritising as part of our ongoing our roll-out of adviserOS – our new approach to platforms.

Through this, we will offer a flexible integration framework across the adviser ecosystem, all centred on enabling the adviser to deliver their specific customer proposition – whatever that looks like – more efficiently. Whether you are a SME business or large national business we are focussed on enabling independent advice, for all advisers.

We’ve already developed our integration capability with our new bulk valuation service, and we’re strategically improving the integration capability of our platform suite to make integrating with Wrap easier than ever.

On this journey we want to make integration with third parties as seamless as possible, e.g. by utilising industry standards, to serve advisers’ – and their clients’ – best interests.

And, in the all-important spirit of partnership, we’re going to keep engaging closely with cross-sector bodies, such as Criterion and Origo, where industry-wide integration is top of the agenda.

This is an exciting journey we’re on, and we’re excited to be working with all of our partners on it. This isn’t a voyage we can take alone.

As we look ahead to driving the advice sector’s future growth, we’ll need this relentless focus on integration.

And it’s going to remain a priority for us.

By working closer together, we’ll, together, get closer to our goals – driving down that all-important cost to serve, helping facilitate more profitable resilient adviser businesses, and helping advisers deliver better outcomes for clients. 

This article originally appeared in Money Marketing in April 2024.