Advisor Group is upping its game with several new technology platforms and training programs for new and experienced advisors, the firm announced Monday.
Advisor Group, one of the nation’s largest networks of independent wealth management firms, based in Phoenix, designed the digital platforms to help the company’s more than 10,000 financial advisors grow, the firm said.
“Advisor Group’s substantial ongoing investments in digital transformation will help financial advisors at each stage of their career lifecycles operate their businesses more efficiently, provide greater value to their clients and grow their businesses much faster than peers affiliated with other firms across the wealth management space,” Advisor Group said in a press release.
“The industry norm is that firms patch their technology systems together—they are not integrated,” Jamie Price, president and CEO of Advisor Group, said in an interview Friday. “We have made a concerted effort (to integrate systems) to help our advisors have more time with their clients. We want our firms to be able to grow faster” and these new systems accomplish that.
“We are building a brand new CRM system where advisors will be able to see their work and their practices in real time” without a lag to get information on their practice and clients, Price said.
The new CRM system is an integrated platform that home-office service specialists at each of Advisor Group’s six subsidiaries will use to support financial advisors, the company said. The platform will consolidate and integrate several older advisor support systems into a new platform that leverages technology through Salesforce, but is customized for Advisor Group, Advisor Group said.
“One of the benefits of being a scale player in the wealth management space is being able to marry the technology with the advisor,” Greg Cornick, president for advice and wealth management at Advisor Group, said in an interview Friday. “The new platforms bring all of the systems together to allow our advisors to have time to proactively grow their businesses.”
Another new digital platform unveiled at ConnectED was Express Onboarding, which will help advisors streamline, simplify and expedite the process by which newly recruited advisors transition to Advisor Group. “Advisor transitions have traditionally been complex, and Advisor Group’s enhanced process, powered by investments in paperless technology, automation and closer integrations, aims to make each step easier and faster,” the firm said.
In addition, Advisor Business Hub is a newly designed portal that brings together all the applications, platforms, content, services and other growth tools that advisors need to run their businesses and serve clients in a modern, easy-to-use interface, Advisor Group said.
The firm also integrated Vidyard for Advisor Group. Vidyard for Advisor Group will enable advisors to rapidly record individual marketing and client communication videos using a desktop app. The platform automatically routes the video for compliance review without the need for manual submission. The platform also provides branding capabilities, the ability to insert calls-to-action in the videos and analytic tools to measure engagement, Advisor Group said.