Pitch your IT at paraplanners

So youhave built yourself a nice new investment platform and you want financial planners to use it.

Your next step is to customise your front-end technology, the bit that users actually see on their desktop, specifically to the needs of those financial planners, right?

Not exactly, says BT’s general manager of wrap products Mark Smith.

According to Smith, customising the desktop through which users access an investment platform to the specific needs of those users is critical to the success of platform providers.

“That front-end look and feel [of the desktop technology] is where you should look to generate an edge,” he says.

But Smith says platform providers should really be aiming to please paraplanners, not financial planners, with their front-end technology.

“Fundamental to the success of a platform is the nature of the desktop that you provide, and fundamental to that is the paraplanner,” Smith says.

“They are the heavy users of the desktop and they are the ones we are trying to customise our functionality and content around.”

Smith says the whole point of investment platforms is to free planners up to spend more time with their clients. While they are doing that, it is paraplanners who will be increasingly interfacing with investment platforms.

“Planners are the people who are the face to the client. Where planners want to spend their time is either building new business or seeing repeat clients.

“Once that has been done, it is the paraplanner who is the main driver of things like reporting functionality, transaction functionality, and even through to actually building financial plans themselves. So, we feel they are an integral part of the process that we have to focus on,” Smith says.

—George Liondis