The 8th Annual Digital Integration in Wealth Management Conference in London talked about the digital customer journey and this led to conversations on omnichannel. Umar Zaman, head of strategy, BNY Mellon’s Pershing EMEA, focused on this in his speech about omnichannel across wealth management.
Zaman started by asking the room who had successfully implemented a multichannel strategy. A few hands were raised, but even less when they were asked about delivering an omnichannel strategy.
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He said: “Omnichannel is about a seamless integrated journey. The technology is out there, however, bringing it together is really hard. Firms need to work on some foundational elements before developing solutions.”
“Why is omnichannel important?” he asked. “Wealth is about the investor and their experience with firms. However, many of those experiences are with individuals and that is how trust is built.
“Over time, the demand from clients for more information has increased. Clients are demanding more from wealth firms. If you can get this right, you can have better engagement with your client, which leads to better retention.”
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By GlobalDataZaman stated: “The two key factors are the technology factor and the human factor.”
With regards to technology, it comes down to legacy systems and infrastructure. These are older systems and silos that are hard to change and connected to so many different parts of the firm.
In addition, data has been collected through various applications at firms and this is hard to unpick because these applications do not talk to each other.
In terms of human factor, Zaman explained: “Change is hard and some people do not like it. I would not say the industry is full of change leaders.”
He concluded: “My suggestion to firms is take the solution off the table and start with fundamentals.
“The more channels you open the more vulnerable you are, so have the right people at the table to get through that part of the journey. You need to have the right skillsets involved.”
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