To Develop Trust, Robo-Advisors Have to Focus on the Value Proposition First
We all probably agree that the landscape of wealth management is globally being shaped radically by many interconnected trends. The wealth management industry has faced various mutually intertwined pressures that have been growing over the past decade, with global macroeconomic tailwinds, rapidly changing the technology landscape, significant monetary policies, evermore demanding customers, and the avalanche of regulatory and compliance requirements. It has become ever-more increasingly challenging to create shared value. While these make it hard for new entrants to enter the market, various technological advancements are breaking barriers to market entry and enabling new things to emerge. The rise and evolution of the robo-advisors and other forms of digital wealth management is one of the most exciting trends that is being currently discussed and deservedly so. These things are forcing incumbents to rediscover their who’s and why’s – who are our customers and what do we offer to them. In…
On the Futility of Innovating on Your Own: From Goods-Dominant Logic to Service(-Dominant) Logic in the Financial Services Industry
It is a kind of cliché to state that the financial services industry landscape is changing rapidly, continuously and often unexpectedly. Customers don’t seem to care about those incumbent financial services firms that are not responsive to their needs. Although there has been a constant stream of assurances from various banks, wealth managers, and insurance companies that they are customer-oriented and responsive to customer needs, a lot of things remain to be done. Customer-orientation hot talk, as I call it, is a form of self-deception, and although most of the financial services companies still heavily rely on old-dated goods-dominant logic, they talk as if the reality is something entirely different. The truth is that most financial services companies are again faking true customer-orientation and this is a real problem. This is very problematic as it deceives both the client as well as shareholders (or stakeholders). Signaling, shouting out loud random words, is simple but…
How valuable is insurers’ data really? More than you can imagine
In God we trust, all others must bring data. – W. Edwards Deming Everyone is talking about data all the time. “Data is the new oil,” is one of the most famous clichés among data-oriented people who don’t actually understand data science. 1)Listen to this podcast to understand the point. This data talk is a form of mass illusion as collecting data is very different from actually deriving meaningful and valuable insights from the data available. Many people have emphasized the importance of data for the future of insurance business, and there probably is n. It also looks like that insurance companies and their senior executives are constantly talking about business intelligence (big) data, data analytics, data mining, and data science. 2)Sure, consultants are talking about this a lot too. Every insurer recognized the importance of data management and data analytics. According to SMA’s research, over 90% of insurers have…
Nordnet launches Robosave: Where is the Nordic digital wealth management heading next?
On last Thursday, one of the largest Pan-Nordic online banks, mutual fund distributors, and stock brokers Nordnet Bank AB unveiled its new robo-advisory service for its Swedish clients. The new independent robo-advising service is called Robosave, and this move signifies a new strategic direction in Nordnet’s overall story. Nordnet has a long history, alongside its main Swedish-only competitor Avanza, of continuously launching new innovative financial services. In the past, Nordnet’s value proposition, as has been noted by Pekka Puustinen in his great book FinancialServiceLogic: In the Revolution of Exchange in Banking and Insurance, has revolved mainly around the promise of functional value (and associated benefits). Nordnet has focused primarily, but not exclusively, on streamlining internal operations, extending the benefits of its various services beyond the plain vanilla retail brokerage (e.g. trade capture, clearing & settlement, and reporting) – all that are essential hallmarks of a value proposition constructed around the promise…