Data mastery: How practices can unlock growth and know their client

Most financial advisers enter the profession to try and make their clients’ lives better, including helping them to reach their goals and to prepare for a happy retirement. While advisers are often good with numbers too, few would say they become an adviser to deal with data.

- Stu Alsop, director of sales, Intelliflo Australia

However, as businesses grow and client books expand, data becomes a fundamental ingredient for both today and tomorrow. For forward-thinking practices, it can unlock new business opportunities, allow advisers to be more strategic and targeted, can help prepare a firm for sale and can prove to clients advisers truly know them.

On the other hand, having data gaps or poor data quality can make an advice business look unprofessional and create administrative headaches when it comes time to audit the business, sell it or market to a new segment.

The data dilemma

In my experience, many Australian advice practices don’t realise the potential of the data sitting within their systems. A wealth of powerful data is there, but practices aren’t capturing it and deploying it effectively, despite spending hours tabulating it. It was a theme that was covered in our whitepaper Advice, Evolved, best summed up by ensombl chief executive Clayton Daniel.