Summary
The seventeenth Meeting of Minds Winning Advisers took place on Thursday 18 October at Pennyhill Park, Bagshot, Surrey. This document summarises the key issues raised in the topics discussed during the roundtables that took place on the day.
A Meeting of Minds Winning Advisers is a biannual strategic forum organised by Owen James which brings together the owner managers of financial advisory firms who typically have £150M - £200M funds under management and between 3 and 20 RIs. They represent independently spirited firms prospering post RDR.
The agenda examined all aspects of their business, focusing on productivity and profitability, as well as overarching trends within the industry as a whole. This session is for those firms based in the southern half of the UK.The agenda encompassed investment trends and the geopolitical climate impacting them as well as the day to day issues faced by those running these businesses.
To find out more about taking part, please contact Emily Landless-Hill at Owen James: emilylandlesshill@owenjamesgroup.com or you can contact her at 01483 861 334.
This Report
The Roundtable sessions were facilitated by:
- Richard Burrows, Independent Consultant
- John Chapman, Owen James
- Richard Clarke, Independent Consultant
- Simon Harrington, PIMFA
- Nick French, MAD Consulting
- James Goad, Owen James
- Paul Miles, Silverbacks Consulting
- Roderic Rennison, Rennison Consulting
We are very grateful for the time and energy they have expended on making A Meeting of Minds Winning Advisers a success and hope you will consider this report an interesting, thought-provoking and accessible read.
The Sponsors
We would like to thank all our sponsors who make these Meetings possible; their motivation for taking part is threefold:
• To be, and to be seen as being supportive of the industry
• To understand the stresses and strains being placed on the industry and, where possible, respond to them
• To talk openly with these business leaders with a view to ensuring that their businesses are strategically aligned.
The Findings
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Talent of the future: from adviser to technical analyst and everything in between
While the advantages of training advisers and TAs from scratch are obvious – particularly when it comes to integrating them into the company culture and moulding their skills, do firms have the time and resources to do so? Or should we just focus on recruitment and head-hunting? With a wave of applications from strong candidates pouring into all types of job openings across various industries, the recruitment criteria and process has inevitably had to change. Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that although skills are absolutely essential to progress, what differentiates the successful from the non-successful candidates is their alignment to the company’s values. To succeed, employees need to translate their skills into motivation driven by purpose and vision. Once firms do hire the right talent, appropriate remuneration and reward policies are in place, the attraction, development and retention of key talent requires on-going focus on the human dynamics.
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The future of pensions
Few prepare for the unexpected but experience shows perhaps we should... Yesterday’s promises are increasingly expensive: the National Insurance Fund is predicted to breach its funding solution by 2032, but reforms have tended to be piecemeal and lacking in a clearly agreed long term objective. Customer experience in current retirement solutions is neither easy nor convenient and does not engage customers or equip them to make informed decisions. From buy outs and longevity, to member options and super funds, we look at how the pension landscape is changing. Technology in the retirement industry lags behind other sectors and the pressure to keep up with ongoing regulatory change has constrained innovation to create more affordable and sustainable solutions. What will pensions and savings policy look like for future generations? Will pensions even exist? “Doing nothing” is no longer an option and eventual collapse is inevitable without major reform.* *(Source: EY report – The future of retirement – A vision for pensions delivery.)
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The Future of Platforms
With platforms being a market that has seen significant growth in the last five years, doubling from £250bn to £500bn assets under administration (AUA), with more customers than ever deciding to use a platform to manage their money, what do we think about the FCA's proposed remedies to improve competition? Is it encouraging that the FCA has recognised the important role of platforms in the value chain? How can the market truly deliver the benefits it is intended to provide? What do you want from a platform – a transactional hands-off relationship or a long-term, deeper relationship with a business that can offer practice management support for the growth of your business for the benefit of your client? Platforms hold a huge amount of data on fund flows, contribution levels, withdrawals, dividend reinvestment, cash management etc – and are uniquely placed to see trends across clients at an aggregate level across all advisers within your business, all advisers in your region and across all advisers using the platform –in total – what value might this platform insight be of to you as a business owner and for your advisers and paraplanners?
