How to court Gen Z investors with intelligent automation 

As digital natives, younger investors expect an experience that’s data-driven, mobile and tailored to their needs, and they have the numbers to make wealth managers sit up and take notice. According to a Vanguard report, Gen Z is investing earlier and at a higher rate than previous generations. It’s estimated that by 2030, up to 80% of new wealth management clients will want to access advice in a “Netflix-style” model that is highly personalized.  

The wealth management industry must respond to this evolution, addressing investment strategies, channels of engagement and cost controls. As wealth and asset managers offer wider ranges of investment choices to appeal to this new generation of investors, tighter regulations are also forcing firms to elevate their governance processes to manage risk appropriately and protect customers.   

CREATING AN OMNICHANNEL EXPERIENCE 

Millennials and Gen Z stand to inherit an estimated $85 trillion through 2045. Wealth managers need to prioritize and invest in improving their digital infrastructure to meet the expectations of their clients. Some 50% of affluent investors say they want better digital capabilities and personalized offerings. 

For wealth and asset managers, clients and employees alike, a super-charged digital business transformation using intelligent automation has huge benefits. Intelligent automation is a combination of cognitive technologies that together can streamline and optimize business processes and decision-making, including robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and business process management. Using digital workers – intelligent software robots programmed to complete specific processes people shouldn’t have to do –working together with employees, can help deliver results. These range from improving data to making better decisions, enhancing process flows, and leaving an audit-friendly digital trail.  
 
According to ThoughtLab, organizations embracing digital transformation have seen increases in productivity (13.8%), assets under management (8.1%) and revenue (7.7%). Many financial companies are already starting their journey with intelligent automation. 

Here are three steps wealth management firms can take to help them achieve a competitive advantage through intelligent automation: 

1. DELIVER A FIRST-CLASS CLIENT EXPERIENCE 

Today’s tech-savvy investors not only expect lower fees, they’re also more likely to switch to a different firm to secure better returns and enjoy frictionless access to information across channels. Delivering a first-class customer experience is imperative to building trust and customer loyalty.  

Intelligent automation enables organizations to improve the customer experience as well as optimize daily operations. Benefits include:  

• Faster, more secure and accurate investor onboarding.
• Allocating a diverse range of assets with better insights into potential profitability. 
• Providing clients with greater access and visibility into their portfolio performance. 
• Delivering total accuracy every time with calculations and monthly statements.

2. INCREASE YOUR REGULATORY COMPLIANCE 

Wealth and asset management is a heavily data-driven industry. Successful companies use automated, real-time reporting and valuations, by collating and extracting data from structured and unstructured sources entering into multiple platforms, whether white-labeled third-party or legacy in-house systems.  
 
Extracting and inputting data are core elements of hundreds of processes, including those relating to risk, compliance, reporting and reconciliation. A digital workforce can replicate the work of an employee once it’s trained on the exact data that need to be sourced and extracted, then update the form, report, system, or communication.  
 
Regulators are rapidly introducing stricter guidance to prevent mis-selling, poor performance and security breaches. Organizations breaking the rules can expect to suffer reputational damage and face financial penalties. Intelligent automation records decision-making processes and digital worker actions at a keystroke level, which simplifies auditing and frees employees to spend more time focusing on client-facing tasks.

3. AUGMENT INVESTMENT DECISIONS 

There’s no substitute for an experienced expert or research team, but changes in the sector mean even the most skilled employees struggle to keep track of the rapidly expanding range of market intelligence and investment opportunities. As more retail investors take hybrid approaches to portfolios, expecting to see alpha-generating opportunities from complex alternative investments, augmented investment decision-making matters. Automated processes that harness the power of advanced technologies allow wealth managers to accurately digitize, classify and extract information from structured, semi-structured and unstructured documents, making it easier to spot trends and correlations to gain more valuable insights.  
 
By integrating intelligent automation into the investment decision process, firms can also create far more accurate investment projection models.

For example, Schroders eliminated the need for its workforce to gather data and information from local files manually. Digital workers have saved the firm 5,000 hours each month across the entire automation program, improving client satisfaction and retention, and freeing employees to focus on more impactful work. 

THINK BIGGER — SCALE IA ACROSS YOUR ORGANIZATION 

Avoid silo adoption and instead embrace a tactical, task-based approach that can engender a culture of individual, yet limit change that is difficult to monitor, govern and orchestrate. Few processes are completely stand-alone and have an impact on adjacent workflows when they are eventually updated. Where wealth firms begin depends on several factors, including senior management buy-in and commitment to adopting automation across the organization.  

Not only will this determine the budgets available for an intelligent automation program but also drive decisions about which platform and skills best fit a firm’s needs – be it a centralized or federalized approach. The former usually involves a central team or center of excellence that governs activities and orchestration for different processes.
 
While younger investors tend to be unpredictable, they’re demanding better digital experiences. Wealth and asset managers who adopt intelligent automation gain a competitive advantage through streamlined processes and enhanced customer experience and position themselves as trusted advisors for this evolving clientele. 

Joe Collura is vice president and solution engineer for the Americas at SS&C Blue Prism