Building a future-ready investment company

To analyze how investment firms plan to meet rapidly evolving investor expectations, Deloitte, together with ThoughtLab and other industry experts, conducted a global survey of investors and investment providers and studied the evolution of the sector. We examine the impact of megatrends, including technology, regulation and taxation, competition, demographics and economics.

The results highlighted the following:

Diversify your customers

Win with modernization: The changing face of investors demands personalized solutions and a more inclusive advisor base. Investment firms must leverage technology and data to understand these needs, find market niches and tailor their offerings accordingly.

Capitalize on customer diversity: As investors become more diverse in terms of age, location, gender, wealth level and lifestyle, companies that leverage technology and data will gain a competitive advantage. This includes building a diverse advisor base to meet clients’ varying needs.

Realize digital 3.0

Redefining digital for investors: Embrace the next generation of digital services, leveraging digital capabilities for tasks like account opening, transfers and advisor communication.

Innovate to drive performance: By seamlessly blending high-tech and high-touch by using technology to enhance advisor capabilities, automate mundane tasks, and deliver a superior customer experience, companies can position themselves as digital leaders.

Make the future advisor responsible: Technology is revolutionizing the role of financial advisors, allowing them to manage a wider client base and provide personalized, comprehensive advice by automating routine tasks.

Increased value proposition

Unlock the wealth curve: Generating investment opportunities at all wealth levels requires democratizing products and services. Companies should offer high-value options, from alternative investments to private banking, to a wider range of investors.

Rethink future offerings: Investment companies must reinvent their offerings for the next era of investing. This includes using digital solutions to reduce costs and providing financial education and tools to make investing accessible to everyone.

Redefining sustainable investing: Investment companies need innovative, sustainable offerings that balance market returns with positive environmental impact and address potential misconceptions.

Adapt market positioning

Leveraging outsourcing for greater efficiency: Outsourcing middle-office and operational functions provides leverage and streamlines core activities. This allows providers to serve more customers and operate at lower costs, freeing up resources for strategic direction.

Generate value from consulting services: Companies should consider fee-for-service options, fee reductions, and performance-based pricing to drive customer value and attract and retain customers.

Harness the power of data: Personalizing wealth management services at scale is data-driven. By analyzing multiple data sources, companies can better understand investor preferences and behaviors and adjust their market position.

Driving innovation through AI

Unleash wealth management with AI: AI has transformative potential in wealth management, improving customer experience and operational efficiency. Businesses should adopt an AI-driven approach to growth.

Strengthen internal solutions: Explore building in-house solutions using AI and low-code tools to achieve cost savings, customization, and market differentiation. Low-code, no-code tools and generative AI make this transition easier.

What is clear to us from this study is that new entrants will serve as catalysts for change and will have shown what is possible. Ultimately, the sector is capital intensive and those with an established investor base and a significant balance sheet are likely to emerge victorious.

The real winners will be the end investors and their families and this should be the main metric by which we measure future success.