“The combination we’re bringing to the table not only meets market demands from a regulatory standpoint, but also addresses the merger and acquisition activity within the industry as organizations are combining and splitting apart,” said Stillman. “VIsory brings a powerful and flexible solution to help meet all of those demands.”
In reality, there’s no good reason that all of a firm’s technology has to be cloud-oriented, and a hybrid of on-premise and cloud technology will likely be the model most financial firms embrace moving forward.
“Clients are starting to question the need to move to the cloud as a lot of what they use—Salesforce, Moneyguidepro, RedTail, pick your poison—are online and in the cloud already,” said Ryder. “Our clients are questioning why they should have to go to the cloud themselves to access software that’s already hosted on someone else’s cloud. Why they should have to go to a fully-hosted environment to run hosted applications. For example, Swizznet hosts a full version of QuickBooks. A client should be able to come off that hosted environment and run whatever else they want on a local computer, using it as an access point for QucikBooks. That’s the kind of hybrid solution that’s in demand. Some clients have actually moved off of cloud hosting, and we secure what they want locally and then they can access cloud-based applications as needed.”
While synergies may be found between the merged firms, Hollander said the combination is one oriented toward future growth. As a result, the True North and RightSize workforces will be retained, he said.
The combined firm will be headquartered in Chesterfield, Mo., but retain a remote workforce with existing offices in Lenexa, Kansas; Swanzey, N.H.; and Scarborough, Maine. Swizznet will continue to do business under its existing brand.