In addition, they provide recurring webinars for new customers, employees, and existing customers who want some more training on the software. Despite all of the training opportunities offered, Ryan feels it is important not to go too far with education, and to find ways to encourage learning but not make it an obligation.
Future plans and upcoming features
Dave and his team have many plans concerning what will be done in the future. In March, they plan to make a significant release to make the solution even more modern, more intuitive and include bucket-managed strategies in addition to UMAs which includes third-party managers. In addition, Dave says that the release will contain some pre-account-opening workflow, planning and other management tools. While implementing them, they will try to provide more information to clients, since the current generation requires this, and to provide more mobile adaptation.
Dave: “People in their 20s and 30s want information. They want to know how investments should be done [and get] some general information—news, market details, and tax information—and this will be somewhat controlled by the advisor.”
To ensure people are aware of new opportunities the company is offering, they will make a huge push towards the end of this year to get their name out.
According to Dave, they currently do not offer financial planning, risk metrics or an IPSbut intend to introduce more of these tools in the upcoming release.
Dave: “We’re looking at planning tools and risk metrics right now which may include a goals-based approach. It depends on the needs of the younger generation, [which] continue to change. That was trendy and it still is a little bit, but that may evolve a little bit more.”
Major challenges of the platform
In general, Dave feels that challenges can have a positive impact on the project:
Dave: “Certain struggles that advisors experience can create opportunities. [if] you’re doing something inefficient [then there’s an area] where you can grow. If you can solve this, you can [push] your business to the next level.”
Regarding challenges, Dave particularly highlights data. Portfolio Pathway receives data from different sources, including those that are missing some valuable details: