By bringing asset managers together into a tech-enabled consortium, we could help them leverage resources for the simulation of scale, removal of barriers, and offer opportunities for creative partnering. This now allows managers to tightly focus on their investment management capabilities and bringing their core competencies to market.
Perhaps, just as important, the democratization of the asset management business is also good for financial advisors and wealth management firms. Creating this new ecosystem brings more access to new ideas and durable solutions between key industry players in a more engaging and creative way. This can help advisors avoid building look-alike solutions with only the top asset management firms represented in client portfolios. By aggregating a diverse, fragmented group of asset managers, we believe we are changing a limitation to an advantage by providing a consultative approach that offers many investment solutions versus pushing product.
Hortz: How would you describe the thematic hallmarks of your platform and how they bring your platform to life?
Spina: I would say that the hallmarks of our platform come down to access, flexibility, and scale. That is what really animates our platform and, when combined, they can change the dynamics of the financial distribution experience.
Access – we consolidate and simplify engagement for product and research due diligence teams by creating a single point of contact for dozens of asset managers and their products. We identify and curate asset managers to fit advisor needs.
Flexibility – the platform offers a broad range of business, data, and content solutions to home office professionals and advisors. These represent value-add intelligence and tools that can be mixed and matched and only used when needed to grow their practices and increase efficiency.
Scale – the platform can add significant economic value to its partners and a differentiated set of products from managers who independently may not have the resources to compete.
Hortz: What else does your RAMP specifically bring to advisors and wealth management firms?
Spina: Wealth management firms, their advisors, and independent RIAs have accepted decades of an interruption-based business model with lots of friction. For 40-plus years, asset managers would cold call and/or walk through an office. More recently those efforts have been better informed by data but still largely reliant on “breaking into an advisor’s book.” While acknowledging the vital role that salespeople will continue to play, what if the FLX platform could pair and deliver high-end content, timely insights, and a genuine understanding of advisor preferences. What if we could turn the interruption model into an invitation model whereby advisors invite our platform and its members into their business as a partner for investment and business solutions, as the advisors’ advisor. We believe that the FLX platform can be the catalyst to that revolution.
Hortz: Any other thoughts or recommendations you would like to share?
Spina: I would like to invite readers to learn more about our new financial services distribution model by visiting our website to explore the platform and some of our core products and services. We specifically designed them into a new ecosystem for your growth and competitive advantage in our industry’s hypercompetitive marketplace.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation, and unique client/community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).