First impressions count.

Without question, having a sleek, sophisticated, user-friendly front end will be crucial to wealth managers’ growth ambitions.

But looks can also be deceiving.

There’s no sense providing a better front end experience if you can’t back it with real substance. In fact, it could make matters worse. Imagine how happy your customers will be to discover their instantly accessible account information and performance reports are populated by wrong or stale information.

A robust, efficient back end that can automate and improve data flows and operational processes is therefore equally imperative.

The carrot and the stick

Vital as client interactions are, automation is not just about satisfying heightened service expectations either.

Think about your bottom line. Industry cost levels are high, and margin pressures growing.

Anywhere manual intervention takes place increases processing times and the potential for errors to creep in, which then take more time and resources to be identified and fixed.

Plus, given the expense involved in recruiting, training and retaining talented staff, do you really want them caught up in activities a machine can do better and faster? Or would you prefer to see them devoted to those tasks where they can add real value and make a difference to your top-line growth? It’s a rhetorical question of course.

Then there’s regulation

I don’t need to tell you how much of a compliance burden this whole barrage of current and upcoming rules is imposing on firms like yours. How are you going to cope with it? And what kind of consequences do you face if your filings and returns are wrong or late, or you breach a regulation unwittingly.

It’s a win, win, win

Automating front, middle and back office processes wherever possible is the only sensible answer.

It will help you meet your regulatory responsibilities, service clients better, enhance employee productivity and engagement, increase scalability, improve operational flexibility to take advantage of emerging business opportunities, and reduce costs.

Yes, it takes some investment. But can you afford not to?