“There’s a fine balance that is important for software companies to mind. Pretty pictures are important but it is more important that the client makes the best decision. We can’t sacrifice analytics in exchange for pretty pictures.”
Another aspect is the complexity of developing this analytics engine. Most companies that have some development staff in-house and some offshore struggle to delegate to the latter any calculation work, and Covisum isn't an exception. However, Elsasser says that they don’t mind delegating a variety of user-experience related tasks to outsourced teams. These are important to the finished product but ultimately aren’t sensitive issues.
Building Onshore And Offshore
For Elsasser, when outsourcing work, clear and regular communication is key. It’s important to have a separate development environment for an outsourced team and a clear backlog. They conduct code reviews on everything that comes back, encourage early deliverables, and hold regular standups at delivery meetings. That is essential for making sure that what’s coming back is actually what was expected.
In this framework, Elsasser says, knowledge transfer is unnecessary. It’s enough to just hire smart, ambitious people who are willing to improve their skills in software engineering and pursue a wealth-management track.
“Part of every review with every manager is [asking,] ‘What are you going to do in the next quarter or year to improve your skillset?’”
The company cares not only about its employees’ futures, but also about its own roadmap. In fact, Elsasasser is personally responsible for growing corporate culture and setting company priorities in the long term:
“We’ve got a pretty formal process for laying out what we’d look like at the end of the quarter, a year, a three-, or five-year period and make sure that we’re making decisions that align with the company that we want to be.”
The Bottom Line
Despite the wide variety of WealthTech tools on the market, advisors tend to struggle with the same pain points—lack of integration, complicated design, and managing development teams. Covisum is on track to tie user experience and quality analysis together, which contributes to overall ecosystem wellbeing.