Maxime Wattel - May 19, 2016
Although the wealth management industry is flocking to Cloud computing services, a research study by IBM Center for Applied Insights points out that differing approaches taken to planning and implementing SaaS is likely to lead to significantly impacts business outcomes.
What Sets SaaS Pacesetters Apart
IBM's global study involved 879 decision makers who have turned to Software as a Service within their businesses, and segmented respondents into the following three groups:- Pacesetters – those who have the highest level of SaaS adoption and are gaining competitive advantage through their broad efforts.
- Challengers – those who have adopted particular elements of SaaS but are still gaining competitive advantage through the SaaS deployments that they have implemented.
- Chasers – those have been more hesitant in adopting SaaS and benefiting from such services.
Moving your Wealth Management Software beyond Austerity to Efficiency and Innovation
Concluding from these results, IBM notes:
“The success of Pacesetters suggests that taking a more outward-focused, customer-centric approach helps put organizations on the path to competitive advantage. An equally distinctive approach to strategy and implementation can help take them to that destination.”
For Family Office software considering adoption of SaaS, the key take-away from this study is not to do away with cost saving factors such as reduced infrastructure and IT support, as motivation for a move to Cloud. After all, the Modern Family Office faces various financial challenges, from the economic downturn to increasing service demands and decreasing budget, which necessitates CEO’s to consider the costs of every business decision.
What wealth managers can take away from this study is the value of looking beyond austerity to start exploring the full potential of SaaS for business outcomes: improved efficiency, increased collaboration, enhanced decision-making, and achievement of business agility.
Pacesetters gain Improved Efficiency with Cloud
IBM’s study brought to light some of the impressive benefits achieved by Pacesetters in terms of enterprise efficiency:
- 66% have utilised SaaS to improve their application agility, making deployment and implementation of solutions easier, quicker and more flexible.
- 75% have markedly improved their self-service capabilities through SaaS, compared to just 26% of Chasers realising this potential.
- 70% are optimising business processes and workflows with SaaS, compared to 31% of Chasers who have explored this benefit.
Pacesetters Utilise Cloud to Increase Collaboration and Amplified Results
The largest majority (61%) of Pacesetters credited SaaS for enhancing external collaboration both internally and externally. 75% noted improved business relationships as a results of external collaboration, with these sources contributing to new perspectives and fresh approaches that led to amplified results.
Internally, social tools were listed as a favourite SaaS application, allowing organisations to set up highly specialised teams that transcend office spaces and national borders.
The results speak for themselves: Pacesetters credited SaaS with helping them to reduce implementation time on many projects by up to 20%.
Pacesetters Tap Into SaaS to Inform their Decision-Making
Availability of real-time data gives wealth managers a critical advantage when it comes to decision-making. Pacesetters utilise the power of SaaS to sift through big data and find the key insights to inform their wealth management choices. By using SaaS to leverage analytics and gain insights from these large masses of data, organisations can make faster, more accurate decisions.
Pacesetters Employ Cloud Flexibility to Achieve Business Agility
SaaS has also enabled Pacesetter financial organisations to interact more closely with the market, allowing them to respond to breaking challenges and opportunities. Specific examples mentioned by Pacesetters include bringing out new or improved products to address customer comments and market trends. Additionally, SaaS is credited with helping these organisations to transform their business processes to add speed and reduce wasted, resulting in greater agility and responsiveness.
Cloud Software for Enhanced Wealth Management
Moving your wealth management and Fund accounting software to the Cloud is about more than just cost saving. Financial organisations that are moving to Cloud-based software services are well advised to explore the full potential of SaaS for improved business outcomes by improving collaboration, informing decision-making and achieving business agility. Digital transformation starts here.
