Wealth Management Services -

Challenges and Solution Framework

Indra P. Chourasia
December 16, 2007
 Wealth Management Services – Challenges and Solution Framework

Table of Content

1. SUMMARY 3
2. WEALTH MANAGEMENT – AN EMERGING SECTOR 4
3. CORE ELEMENTS OF WEALTH MANAGEMENT SERVICES 5
3.1 FINANCIAL PLANNING 7
3.1.1. CLIENT PROFILING 7
3.1.2. INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE 7
3.2 PORTFOLIO STRATEGY DEFINITION / ASSET ALLOCATION 8
3.2.1. DEFINING PORTFOLIO STRATEGIES AND PORTFOLIO MODELING 8
3.2.2. DETERMINATION OF PORTFOLIO CONSTITUENTS AND ALLOCATION OF ASSETS 8
3.2.3. STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION 8
3.3 PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT 9
3.3.1. PORTFOLIO ADMINISTRATION 9
3.3.2. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND ANALYTICS 9
3.4 STRATEGY REVIEW AND ALIGNMENT 9
3.4.1. RECALIBRATION OF PORTFOLIO STRATEGY 9
3.4.2. REBALANCING, REALLOCATION AND DIVESTMENT OF ASSETS 9
4. KEY CHALLENGE AREAS 9
4.1 HIGHLY PERSONALIZED AND CUSTOMIZED SERVICES 9
4.2 PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP DRIVING THE BUSINESS 10
4.3 EVOLVING CLIENT PROFILE 10
4.4 CLIENT INVOLVEMENT LEVEL 10
4.5 PASSION INVESTMENT (PHILANTHROPY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY) 10
4.6 LIMITED LEVERAGING CAPABILITIES OF TECHNOLOGY (AS AN ENABLER) 11
4.7 TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT 11
4.8 INTRICATE KNOWLEDGE OF CROSS-FUNCTIONAL DOMAIN 11
5. SOLUTION FRAMEWORK 11
5.1 QUALITY OF SERVICE LEVEL 12
5.2 UNIVERSAL SERVICE OFFERING 12
5.3 INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE PROCESSES 13
5.4 PRICE NOT A TRUE DIFFERENTIATOR 13
5.5 UNCONVENTIONAL DELIVERY CHANNEL AND COMMUNICATION 13
5.6 FLEXIBILITY OF TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE 13
6. CONCLUSION 14
7. REFERENCES 15

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1. Summary

Wealth management services area in financial sector has been witnessing more attention during last
couple of years. Capgemini Merrill Lynch Wealth Report 2007 cites number of HNWIs globally to be
around 9.5 million with wealth held by them totaling to US$37.2 trillion in year 2006. Value of wealth held
by HNWIs represents an increase of around 11.4% since 2005.

Considering long-term high value business proposition, number of banks and niche players has
started offering full range of wealth management services targeted to HNWIs and emerging affluents.

While growing volume of premium services to affluent clients becomes the key driver for most of the
service provider firms, many unique elements inherent to wealth management services requires
completely different service offering model than the existing model for transactional services. Greatly
accustomed in offering commoditized financial services so far, demand of unconventional form of service
model poses a big challenge in charting growth path for these wealth management firms.

Key Elements of Wealth Management Services

Wealth management services involve fiduciary responsibilities in providing professional investment advice
and investment management services to a client. Depending on the mandate of the services given to the
Wealth Manager, wealth management services could be packaged at various levels:

a) Advisory
b) Investment Processing (transaction oriented)
c) Custody, Safekeeping and Asset Servicing
d) End-to-end Investment Lifecycle Management

Wealth management services comprises of following key function areas of: (a) Financial Planning, (b)
Portfolio Strategy Definition/ Asset Allocation / Strategy Implementation, (c) Portfolio Management –
Administration, Performance Evaluation and Analytics, and (d) Strategy Review and Modification.

Key Challenge Areas

Wealth management firms face many challenges in formulating winning services offering meeting the
client needs. Some of key challenges faced by wealth management firms are:

1. Highly Personalized and Customized Services

2. Personal relationship driving the business
3. Evolving Client Profile
4. Client Involvement Level
5. Passion Investment (Philanthropy and Social Responsibility)
6. Limited Leveraging Capabilities of Technology (as an enabler)
7. Technical Architecture and Technology Investment
8. Intricate Knowledge of Cross-functional Domain

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Solution Framework

A HNWI client expects exclusiveness in services and key to success for a firm lies in offering
exclusiveness in services delivery (high quality services on most personalized basis), going beyond
client expectations.

A solution framework with considered inclusion of following key elements would help firms in meeting
and exceeding client needs towards sustainable business growth:
1. Quality of Service Level: Highly focused around client needs, a broad framework of service
offering would be revolving around: Anticipate, Analyze, Advice, Act and Monitor cycle.
2. Universal Service Offering
3. Investment in People Processes
4. Price not a True Differentiator
5. Unconventional Delivery Channel and Communication
6. Flexibility of Technical Architecture: Against the background of lack of clarity on business
model and involved process, A loosely oriented technical architecture with optionality and
mix of Build – Buy – Integrate components would be considered as a good beginning point.
To meet the information technology requirements, a firm has several alternatives (or
combination of alternatives) to consider:
- Integrated solution approach: Developing in-house applications to meet end-to-end new
business requirements.
- Service Bureau /ASP Model: Information technology service providers offering
integrated end-to-end processing infrastructure and services including core of business
processes of wealth management.
- Stand-alone commercial software product/solutions: Pre-packaged solutions that can
be focused to specific part of services or provide comprehensive end-to-end
processing.

To provide enough resilience and high business relevance, any of the considered option
and associated technical structure should keep due provisions for the following key
elements:
- Rule based processing to manage complex business rules and service definitions.
- Client profile / data management to cater a profile driven solution offering.
- Complex decision support and client oriented analytics.
- Flexibility to incorporate manual processing interfaces in applications.

2. Wealth Management – An Emerging Sector

Wealth management services area in financial sector, hitherto used to be the preserve of some top
multinational banks and financial firms- offering exclusive services to a select few, has been
witnessing more attention during last couple of years.

A booming economy, rising stock prices and an increase in income and spending power have brought

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sharp focus on this sector. With an increasing population of High Net worth Individuals (HNWIs)1, the
unsaid tagline of earlier days - "Don't call us. We'll call you (if you are that wealthy!)” seems to be
completed altered in recent times. Considering long-term high value business proposition, number of
banks, financial firms and niche players has started offering full range of wealth management services
targeted to HNWIs and emerging affluents.

As per recently published Capgemini Merrill Lynch Wealth Report 2007, number of HNWIs around the
world and value of their assets has been continuously rising. Number of HNWIs globally is estimated to be
around 9.5 million in year 2006, an increase of over 8.35% over previous year. HNWI wealth totals
US$37.2 trillion, representing an increase of around 11.4% since 2005.

As per report, number of HNWIs in India is increasingly growing – at a rate higher than other region of
world. Number of HNWIs in India is estimated to be around 100,000 in year 2006 - an increase of over
20.5% over previous year. Though, in absolute terms the above number appears pretty miniscule (if we
compare that with the number of retail investors in India2), however, in terms of value it really makes a
really huge sum of serviceable investment3.

While growing volume of premium services to affluent clients becomes the key driver for most of the
service provider firms, many unique elements inherent to wealth management services requires completely
different service offering model than the existing model for transactional services. To meet the client
service expectations accurately, servicing model and framework has to be deeply oriented with high level
of client satisfaction. It is not a surprise that many of successful firms in wealth management sector draw
lessons from successful service leaders from hospitality, entertainment and retailing industries, to learn the
trick of enhanced client satisfaction.

Greatly accustomed in offering commoditized financial services so far, demand of unconventional form of
service model poses a big challenge in charting growth path for these wealth management firms.

Before discussing about the challenges and possible solution approach in detail, we would first take a
comprehensive view on the key elements of the wealth management services.

3. Core Elements of Wealth Management Services

In most basic sense, wealth management services involve fiduciary responsibilities in providing
professional investment advice and investment management services to Institutions, funds
(Pension/mutual/Hedge), corporations, trusts as well as HNWIs. In the present context of our discussion,
we would keep our focus limited to HNWIs.

1 There is no accurate definition of level of wealth to be considered into category of High Net worth Individuals (HNWI).

The most commonly quoted figure for an individual to be considered high net worth is $1 million in liquid financial assets. An
investor with less than $1 million but more than $100,000 is considered to be "affluent". The upper end of HNWI is around $5
million, at which point the client is then referred to as "very HNWI". More than $50 million in wealth classifies a person as "ultra
HNWI".

2 Though, no authentic figure on population of retail investors is currently available. It was accounted that UTI’s flagship scheme US-64 had more
than 20 million investors.

Further, as per figure quoted in Economic Survey of India (2005-2006), number of depository accounts in NSDL and CDSL together was 8.5
million in 2005.

3 Considering wealth of around 9.5 million HNIs globally sums up to US$ 37.2 trillion, an average HNWI would be possessing wealth of around

US$ 3.91 million. Taking this average figure in context of HNWIs in India, wealth of HNWIs in India works out to be an astronomical amount of
approximately US$ 391.5 billion.
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Some of analogous terms used for wealth management could be considered as Portfolio Management,
Investment Management and many times Fund Management or Asset Management.

Depending on the mandate of the services given to the Wealth Manager, wealth management services
could be packaged at various levels:

a) Advisory
Wealth manger’s role is limited to the extent of providing guidance on investment / financial planning
and tax advisory, based on client profile. Investment decisions are solely taken by the client, as per his
/her own judgment.

b) Investment Processing (transaction oriented)

Client engages wealth manager to execute specific transaction or set of transactions. Investment
planning, decision and further management remain vested with the client.

c) Custody, Safekeeping and Asset Servicing

Client is responsible for investment planning, decision and execution. Wealth manager is entrusted
with management, administration and oversight of investment process.

d) End-to-end Investment Lifecycle Management

Wealth manager owns the whole gamut of investment planning, decision, execution and management,
on behalf of the client. He is mandated to make financial planning, implement investment decisions
and manage the investment throughout its life.

Wealth management services comprises of following key function areas:

a) Financial Planning
b) Portfolio Strategy Definition/ Asset Allocation / Strategy Implementation
c) Portfolio Management – Administration, Performance Evaluation and Analytics
d) Strategy Review and Modification

Detail description on each of these areas has been presented in the succeeding paragraphs.

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Wealth Management Overview

Client Profiling
Financial Planning and assessment of
investment objectives

Defining portfolio management strategies

Portfolio Strategy and

Modeling
Portfolio modeling, determination of the constituents and
allocation of assets

Strategy Impln. Implementation, Churning, Rebalancing and divestment of assets

and Review

Managing transaction processes, benefit processing, Tax management, Accounting,

Portfolio
Reconciliation, Client Reporting, Fee/charges etc.
Mgmt/Admin

Investment Performance
- Return (absolute/trend)
- Tax impact
- Transaction costs

3.1 Financial Planning

3.1.1. Client Profiling

Client profiling takes in account multitude of behavioural, demographic and investment characteristics
of a client that would determine each client’s wealth management requirements. Some of key
characteristics to be evaluated for defining client’s investment objective are:

- Current and future Income level

- Family and life events
- Risk appetite / tolerance
- Taxability status
- Investment horizon
- Asset Preference /restriction
- Cash flow expectations
- Religious belief (non investment in sin sector like - alcohol, tobacco, gambling firms, or
compliant with Sharia laws)
- Behavioural History (Pattern of past investment decisions)
- Level of client’s engagement in investment management (active / passive)
- Present investment holding and asset mix

3.1.2. Investment Objective

Based on the client profile, investment expectations and financial goals of the client could be
clearly outlined. Defining investment objectives helps to identify investment options to be
considered for evaluation. Investment objective for most of the investors could be generally
considered amongst the following:

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- Current Income
- Growth (Capital Appreciation)
- Tax Efficiency (Tax Harvesting)
- Capital Preservation (often preferred by elderly people to make sure they don’t outlive their
money.)

3.2 Portfolio Strategy Definition / Asset Allocation

3.2.1. Defining Portfolio Strategies and Portfolio Modeling

After establishing investment objectives, a broad framework for harnessing possible investment
opportunities is formulated. This framework would factor for risk-return trade-off of considered
options, investment horizon and provide a clear blueprint for investment direction.

Investment strategy helps in forming broad level envisioning of asset class (Securities, Forex,
Commodity, Real State, Reference and Indices, Art/Antique and Lifestyle Assets (Car, Boat,
Aircraft)), market, geography, sector and industry. Each of these asset classes is to be
comprehensively evaluated for inclusion in portfolio model, in view of defined investment
objectives.

While defining the strategy, consideration of client preference or avoidance for specific asset
class, risk tolerance, religious beliefs is the key element, which would come into picture. Thus,
for a client with a belief of avoidance of investment in sin industries (alcohol, tobacco, gambling
etc.) is to be duly taken care of. Likewise, for a client looking for Sharia- compliant investment,
strategy formulation should consider investment options meeting with the client expectations.

3.2.2. Determination of Portfolio Constituents and Allocation of Assets

Guided with the investment strategy, constituents in portfolio model are determined, which would
directly and efficiently contribute towards client’s investment objectives. Thus, a broad level
investment guidance of – “investment in fixed income in emerging market” would further
determine classification within Fixed Income such as Govt. or corporate bonds, fixed or variable
rate bonds, Long or short maturity bonds, Deep discounted or Par bonds, Asset backed or other
debt variants.

Return profile, risk sensitivity and co-relation of constituents within portfolio model would help to
determine the size (weightage) of each individual constituent in the portfolio.

3.2.3. Strategy Implementation

Having decided the portfolio constituents and its composition, transactions to acquire specific
instruments and identified asset class is initiated. As acquisition cost would be having bearing on
overall performance of the portfolio, many times process of asset acquisition may be spread
over a period of time to take care of market movement and acquire the asset at favourable price
range.

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3.3 Portfolio Management

3.3.1. Portfolio Administration

Portfolio Administration involves handling of investment processes and asset servicing. This
would also require tax management, portfolio accounting, fee administration, client reporting,
document management and general administration relating with portfolio and client.

This function would involve back office administration and custodial services to manage
transaction processes (trading and settlement) - interfacing with brokers/dealers/agents, Fund
managers, Custodians, Cash Agent and many other market intermediaries.

3.3.2. Performance Evaluation and Analytics

Performance evaluation of the portfolio is an ongoing process. Portfolio return is continuously

monitored and analyzed with respect to defined portfolio objectives. Analysis dimension could be
varied – simple and complex. These may include - absolute return, relative return (in comparison
to chosen benchmark), trend, pattern, cost impact, tax impact, concentration, lost opportunity
and other form of sensitivity and what-if analysis.

Any deviation of portfolio performance observed during performance evaluation would lead to
strategy review and any possible alignment of portfolio strategy.

3.4 Strategy Review and Alignment

3.4.1. Recalibration of Portfolio Strategy

Based on performance evaluation and future outlook of the investment, portfolio strategy is
evaluated on periodic basis. To keep it aligned with the defined investment objectives, portfolio
strategy is suitably re-calibrated from time to time. Many times, review of portfolio strategy would
be necessitated due to change in client profile or expectations.

3.4.2. Rebalancing, Reallocation and Divestment of Assets

Any re-calibration of strategy and consequent change in portfolio model would require
rebalancing of the assets in portfolio. This would be achieved through rebalancing the asset
(divesting over-allocated part and acquiring under allocated), relocation (from one sector the
other or from one instrument to other instrument in the same class) or complete divestment.

4. Key Challenge Areas

While immense business potentiality of this emerging sector is a driving point for most of the firms,
they face many challenges in formulating winning services offering meeting the client needs. In the
following section, we would briefly take a look on the key challenges area in the present context.

4.1 Highly Personalized and Customized Services

Unlike other stream of financial services, mostly being transactional /commoditized in nature, wealth

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management services require client specific solution and service offering. No one solution exactly meets
the needs of other client. In a situation of highly personalized and customized nature of service offering,
developing any form of generic service model does not support growth of the business.

4.2 Personal relationship driving the business

To meet client expectation of personal attention, mode of communication in wealth management

services tends to be highly personalized. Thus, the conventional grids of communication, such as call
centre, data centre does not fit well. Success of wealth management services heavily draws on personal
interaction with the dedicated relationship manager, who takes care of whole investment management
lifecycle for bunch of clients on one-to-one basis. This essentially requires service firm to invest heavily
in human processes to groom and retain a team on competent relationship managers with cross-
functional skills.

4.3 Evolving Client Profile

The biggest challenge in providing wealth management service offering is to factor and reckon the
evolving nature of client profile, in terms of investment objective, time horizon, risk appetite and so on.
Thus, a service model developed for a particular client cannot remain static over a period of time. Any
service model has to be flexible enough to consider the dynamic nature of client profile and expectations
arising out of it.

4.4 Client Involvement Level

The conventional adage – the more money you have, more effort is needed to manage it – proves to be
otherwise in case of HNWIs. Generally, client involvement in managing the finance remains on the lower
side. This brings onus of managing the whole gamut of investment and due performance single-handedly
on the shoulders of investment manager.

4.5 Passion Investment (Philanthropy and Social Responsibility)

In the recent years a trend has been observed that bulk of investments by HNWIs has been directed
towards passion investments (art, antique, jewellery, coins, unique assets, luxury), philanthropy and
social/community causes.

As per World Wealth report, 11% of HNW investors worldwide contributed to philanthropic causes with a
contribution over 7% of their wealth in year 2006. Ultra-HNWIs contribution was even more - 17% of
Ultra-HNW investors that gave to philanthropy contributed over 10% of their wealth. In total, this equates
to more than US$285 billion globally.

Against this backdrop, new breed of HNWIs expect to strategically manage the wealth and personal
resources allocated to philanthropy purpose, in order to maximize its impact. This demands a
relationship manager not just to be a passive financial advisor rather a passionate partner sharing
interest and inclination of the associated client.

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4.6 Limited Leveraging Capabilities of Technology (as an enabler)

In the recent times, we have witnessed technology a key enabler to help business to expand its market
reach with reduced cost of services offering. Online banking and online trading/brokerage services are
the best examples in this regard. Technology leveraging has helped services firm to achieve universal
proliferation of market with substantially reducing transaction cost.

As business rules and service definitions to guide the applications tends to be quite composite in wealth
management services, leveraging the capabilities of technology to meet the business requirement may
not be highly feasible in the initial years.

4.7 Technical Architecture and Technology Investment

As business architecture is still evolving, a proven basis of resilient technical architecture and framework
to support the emerging business greatly remains missing. In absence of this framework, any investment
commitment towards application development / system implementation would be fraught with severe
risk.

4.8 Intricate Knowledge of Cross-functional Domain

By very nature of wealth management, it not just involves matters of plain vanilla finance but has intricate
relationship with many elements of domestic / international law, taxation and regulatory norms. In order
to provide sound investment guidance, a relationship manager is required to have intricate knowledge of
domestic/cross-border finance, accounting, legal and taxation subjects.

5. Solution Framework

Generic services offering model is going to draw big blank in case of wealth management services. A
HNWI client expects exclusiveness in services in a normal manner. In highly competitive market, key
to success for a firm lies in offering exclusiveness in services delivery (high quality services on most
personalized basis), going beyond the client expectations.

A solution framework with considered inclusion of following key elements would help firms in meeting
and exceeding client needs towards sustainable business growth.

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5.1 Quality of Service Level

Quality of service level provided by the service provider firm would the key determinant of growth and
success in client acquisition, client satisfaction and client retention aspects.

In a sense, service offering could be developed in the form of partnership with the client based on trust
and integrity, where the relationship manager remains highly responsive to client sensitivities and
expectations.

Without over-emphasizing, a satisfied client would provide multitude of opportunities of growth of

business – through deepening the relationship, direct / indirect referencing as well as cross selling of
products. In the other situation of deficiency in service level, he would not hesitate to move the business
to another firm.

This keeps strong emphasis on continued engagement with the client on the aspects of client
expectation and servicing, rather than showing extra attention only during the period of client acquisition.
Focused around client needs, a broad framework of service offering during whole lifecycle of client
investment management would be revolving around: Anticipate, Analyze, Advice, Act and Monitor
cycle.

Monitor Anticipate

Act Analyze

Advice

5.2 Universal Service Offering

To meet the client needs in holistic manner, product and service offering range of the firm should be wide
enough to cover the investment spectrum across its lifecycle.

In an ideal situation, a client would expect to deal with a single firm to get complete range of investment
management services. However, for various business considerations of the service provider firm, in
many situations it may not be a viable proposition to offer those services.

While universal service offering with assortment of services under single umbrella is not attainable in-
house, it could be achieved through active partnership and affiliation. But, due consideration is required
that quality of service level provided by partners/affiliates does not get compromised in any manner. Any
shortcoming in service quality, even if caused by partner/affiliate’s services, would be ultimately impairing
client satisfaction towards the firm.

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5.3 Investment in People Processes

As relationship manager remains the face of the firm to a client, success of the firm would be greatly
dependent on the skills, drive and enthusiasm of relationship managers (to take an extra mile), while
bonding and dealing with any of client issues.

This aspect is more challenging than as it appears. This necessitates transformation of organizational
philosophy towards its people and people processes contributing to business success. Firms would be
required to invest heavily in human processes to attract, groom and retain a motivated team of
relationship managers, who will make the real difference between winning and losing the game.

5.4 Price not a True Differentiator

Pricing as a key differentiator to distinct the service offering from one firm to other may not be highly
relevant in case of wealth management services. Focused on performance and quality of service, pricing
in isolation will not make much meaning to service seeking clients. Client would always value the pricing
from the quality of services received. He will certainly not mind paying extra, if he finds services offered
to him meeting and exceeding his expectations.

5.5 Unconventional Delivery Channel and Communication

Delivery channel for service content and mode of communication has to be greatly customized - aligned
with the client-desired vehicles. This would require a process of continuous re-inventing and re-defining
the grid of delivery and communication channels to meet client expectations. Impact of technological
advancements and its interplay on service delivery and communication method would certainly be an
equally challenging aspect to be factored in, while designing such strategies.

5.6 Flexibility of Technical Architecture

While business potential appears to be quite high, existing business architecture still does not provide
any sound basis to formulate technical roadmap. Added to that, dynamic characteristics of client profile
bring an increased challenge in drawing a firm implementation blueprint.

In the given situation, any big-bang commitment towards technical implementation plan would not be a
wise idea. A prudent approach would be to get started on modular basis with progressive integration of
functional components in order of its functional significance. Gaining insight and confidence around the
business processes, this could be gradually scaled over the period of time.

To meet the information technology requirements, a firm has several alternatives (or combination of
alternatives) to consider:

a) Integrated solution approach: Developing in-house applications to meet end-to-end new business
requirements. These applications are based on existing technology architecture of the firm and are
closely integrated with the existing service models. It would be a least preferred choice in the
current situation, on count of cost, time, lack of clarity and complexity of solution.

b) Service Bureau /ASP Model: A recent trend has been witnessed in the solution provider’s
landscape. Many of information technology service providers have come out with novel solution for
investment management / investment processing platform in the form of service bureau / ASP. This
platform provides integrated end-to-end processing infrastructure and services including core of
business processes of wealth management.

On the part of a wealth management firm, paying agreed charges to service bureau provider, option

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of service bureau completely eliminates the requirement of ongoing resource commitment and cost
of maintaining information technology infrastructure.

While total cost of owning may be the key motivating point for a wealth management firm to adopt
service bureau model, the key consideration of providing high quality of service level with enhanced
responsiveness may not be adequately answered. The question remains to be answered is – what
would be the key differentiator in service offering of two wealth management firms operating from
the same service bureau?

c) Stand-alone commercial software product/solutions: Pre-packaged solutions that can be

focused to specific part of services or provide comprehensive end-to-end processing. These can be
deployed independently or could be integrated with existing systems. Cost, customization and
integration difficulties would be the challenging points.

A loosely oriented technical architecture with optionality and mix of Build – Buy – Integrate components
would be considered as a good beginning point. To provide enough resilience and high business
relevance, any of the considered option and associated structure should keep due provisions for the
following key elements:

- Considering the complexity of business processes and involved business rules, rule based
processing would be the core of processing.
- Client profile acquires many new dimensions with plethora of attributes. Client data is required to be
appropriately managed (aggregate / segregate) to build a profile driven solution offering.
- Decision support and client oriented analytics acquire more importance.
- Applications should provide adequate flexibility to incorporate manual processing interfaces.

6. Conclusion

Generic services offering model is going to draw big blank in case of wealth management services. A
HNWI client expects exclusiveness in services in a normal manner. In highly competitive market, key to
success for a firm lies in offering exclusiveness in services delivery (high quality services on most
personalized basis), going beyond the client expectations.

Service offering developed in the form of partnership with the client based on trust and integrity, with
relationship manager remaining highly responsive to client sensitivities and expectations becomes the
winning point in client acquisition, client retention and enhanced client satisfaction.

Continued engagement with the client throughout the relationship lifecycle would greatly help in
understanding dynamic client expectation and providing desired level of services. A broad framework of
service offering revolving around: Anticipate, Analyze, Advice, Act and Monitor cycle, would provide a
sound basis to cater evolving client needs.

Organizational human process requires re-oriented strategy to attract, groom and retain a motivated team
of relationship managers with cross-functional expertise, who will make the real difference in delivering the
service content.

Considering the complexity of business rules and service definitions in the business processes, leveraging
the capabilities of technology to meet the business requirement may not be highly feasible in the initial
years. Further, in absence of proven business architecture, basis for resilient technical architecture and
framework to support the emerging business still remains desired. This requires adopting a cautious
approach towards investment commitment in technical implementation

A loosely oriented technical architecture with optionality and mix of Build – Buy – Integrate components
would be considered as a good beginning point. Rule based engine, profile driven solution offering, client
oriented decision support and manual-processing interface would be some of the key considerations in
implementation plan.
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7. References

a) World Wealth Report 2007 by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch

b) The Journal of Wealth Management, Winter 2007 (Editorial by Jean L.P. Brunel, Editor)
c) Beyond the Back Office – Technology’s role in Wealth Management by Bob Stewart (
http://www.investedge.com/pdf/beyond-the-back-office.pdf )
d) 2007 Wealth Management Best Practices: A practical guide by Vicki Morris, NorthStar and
Sonaimuthu N, Infosys Technologies Ltd
e) Boomers Need Wealth Management Services – CU360 – Online Research and advice portal
(http://cu360.cuna.org/articles/story.php?doc_id=2180)

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