The financial services industry is a competitive and complex sector. The right technology can make the difference between success and failure. To stay competitive, wealth management firms need to adopt tools that can optimize internal processes, manage client workflows, reduce data migrations, create unique customer experiences, and more. Our work with wealth management firms around the world has shed light on the importance of tools that offer advanced features like predictive analytics to help improve the client experience. These experiences have also illuminated seven trends that are transforming wealth management to meet the changing demands of the market.

1. Consolidated View of a Client
   
   To manage and grow wealth, clients need a consolidated view of their portfolio. A unified view enables more informed decisions about how best to invest a family’s wealth. Tools like Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) can help build this unified view of data, giving firms the insights they need to manage all aspects of their client portfolios.
    
2. Automating Client Onboarding Process
   
   The onboarding process has traditionally been complex for wealth management firms. Clients have multiple touchpoints that require data entry, which often leads to errors and delays. Technology can help streamline onboarding and eliminate many repetitive processes like paperwork verification and account setups. This reduces time and errors on the firm’s side while dramatically improving the customer experience.
   
   Setting up accounts with custodians adds another layer of complexity that needs to be addressed. These accounts often require transferring assets from one custodian to another. Wipro has automated and optimized this process by providing an interface between the Salesforce FSC and existing systems, ensuring no data is lost in the migration.
    
3. Client Workflow Automation
   
   Wealth management firms need to be able to automate repetitive and time-consuming processes so they can focus on what’s most important: providing high-level expertise. Using the right tools gives firms access to a wide range of automation that allow changes or workflow adjustments without requiring any technical skills.
   
   For example, automating the handling of life events such as divorce and death can remove many repetitive processes. Taking the technology further, updating life events can also automatically calculate balances for new investments, changes to annuities, revisions to beneficiaries, and reviews for retirement and personal estate plans. Dashboards and reporting can even be customized based on a firm’s requirements to stay ahead of compliance testing and identify trends in client behavior before problems arise.
    
4. Mergers and Acquisitions Management
   
   Another trending area in the wealth management space is mergers and acquisitions. Whether a firm is looking to start M&A, in the middle of an M&A integration, or looking to be acquired, having the tools right and frameworks in place can help identify required integrations, automate processes, and provide a unified view across the organization so everyone is on the same page.
    
5. Financial Planning Tools
   
   Wealth management firms often need to share information with clients about all of their investments. This is difficult at best, given the distribution of data across many different systems. By combining investment data from multiple financial institutions into one platform, advisors and clients can access all information without manual intervention. Clients receive an easy-to-understand dashboard showing everything they own or owe, and advisors have access to deep analytics behind each portfolio so they can recommend tailored strategies for each client.
    
6. Identify Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Opportunities
   
   Leveraging data to up-sell and cross-sell is important to wealth management firms. Utilizing Salesforce FSC gives companies a full suite of capabilities including dashboards, outbound messaging, and predictive analytics tools to identify insights into customer behavior. These tools enable firms to leverage their data to up-sell and cross-sell additional relevant products and services.
    
7. Revenue Management
   
   Many firms experience revenue leakage due to antiquated billing and fee processing and the inability to track fees accurately. With a fully integrated billing and fee processing system, firms can identify and minimize errors and potential revenue leaks while there is time for resolution.
   
   Improving in any one of these areas can provide great value for wealth management firms. For example, automating client-onboarding processes has reduced processing time by 40% for several Wipro clients, and adopting a tool like Salesforce FSC has allowed firms to enjoy gains in all seven areas.
   
   The Wipro Salesforce practice has helped wealth management firms transform their business using the Salesforce FSC. This tool, along with leveraging our team’s industry expertise, can provide measurable benefits for wealth management firms. Please contact us to learn more.