These days, there is a lot of talk about integration, with most industry pundits, broker dealers and custodians limiting their focus to the topic of technology integration. Designed to drive advisor efficiency, technology integration is mostly focused on bringing systems and applications to work better together and to decrease the number of steps necessary to complete various tasks.  

However, for those of us who are practicing financial advisors, I think there is another meaning of the definition of integration and that is to integrate systems, technology, practice management and human capital to create an efficient, profitable and enjoyable financial advisory business.  These thoughts and concepts are captured in our second white paper, The Integrated Practice^TM. 

Here are some highlights: 

Despite experiencing excellent growth over the past decade, the independent advisory industry is reaching a critical point in its evolution and is currently being challenged by inefficient operations and a lack of systems.  Due to the lack of standard business practices being applied, independent firms are finding they are not able to evolve with growth, are becoming capacity constrained, are not delivering a consistent service to clients and ultimately, are becoming less profitable.

These issues are causing disruption in service delivery and are limiting their ability to manage growth and meet client demands. 

Leading firms, however, are finding solutions to these fundamental challenges by bringing a focus on business and process management and applying it to improve their firms.  These firms are combining the optimal use of systems, workflows, technology, practice management and human capital to create a thriving business operation that is efficient, is able to scale with growth and has a high level of profitability. They are creating The Integrated Practice^TM .

Advisors can achieve these results by following the recommendations and ideas contained in the report. These actionable strategies and innovative approaches can be thoughtfully incorporated to transform the ways advisors operate today.

By doing so, advisors are positioned to build a great business that seamlessly delivers a high level of service, is profitable and increases in value that can later be monetized upon their retirement. 

The high level concepts we’ve identified above are some of the critical success factors we’ve identified.  To learn more, please download our free The Integrated Practice^TM white paper at www.FoxFinancialPlanningNetwork.com. 

You can also find me on Twitter @DeborahSFox for my latest thoughts.