Hewison is one of Australia’s premier independent financial advice firms. Their direct investment philosophy together with individually managed accounts, provide clients with optimum service and investment strategies that have been tested and adapted over the last 30 plus years to cope with rising and falling financial markets.
As a software provider of innovative advice systems we are always on the lookout for firms who share our view of the future for advice. Hewison Private Wealth is undoubtedly one of these firms.
Andrew Hewison and the team are blazing a trail for themselves and their peers, and have embraced technology and digital advice to deliver their future operating model. Importantly they have been very clear about their client proposition, how they wish to engage with their clients and have selected best-of-breed technology partners who can work together to deliver an efficient and flexible suite of client centric solutions.
HPW were looking for a replacement solution for an in-house portfolio management system which was no longer supported. After an extensive review of the technology marketplace they selected PortfolioCloud to power their end-to-end investment process.
PortfolioCloud was shortlisted alongside a number of technology platforms. As well as a number of functional advantages, the PortfolioCloud pricing model was a good fit for HPW’s philosophy and client proposition. PortfolioCloud was also chosen for its superior rebalancing algorithms and the ability to customise the application to fit HPW’s business and investment process. As a SaaS based solution, PortfolioCloud provided a framework that would allow HPW to evolve and advance their investment proposition over time.
HPW had taken a best-of-breed approach to building their technology ecosystem. Alongside PortfolioCloud, HPW had chosen Class (for administration), OpenMarkets (for broking) and Salesforce (as their CRM). PortfolioCloud would be integrated with all these participants to provide a streamlined advice workflow. This included Salesforce single sign-on (SSO) and Straight Through Processing (STP) with OpenMarkets.
Change of this nature is not always easy for advice firms. HPW recognised this early and resourced the team accordingly. The HPW team were heavily involved in the design and co-development of the solution and were able to work effectively with our development teams.
As technology vendors, it was important to recognise the challenges when integrating disparate systems, but shield much of the technical and commercial complexity from HPW to enable them to focus on their own operations and client outcomes.
The project team met each week to plan, execute and track progress. PortfolioCloud provided the project governance framework which they have refined through previous client engagements.
Integration was identified very early on as a project risk. To minimise this risk, significant effort was focussed on mapping data elements and building the connectors between PortfolioCloud and HPW’s ecosystem partners.
Like most advice firms HPW, had limited technical expertise in-house. To remove this dependency, a key objective for PortfolioCloud was to absorb much of the complexity associated with the integration. With this in mind PortfolioCloud worked closely with the other ecosystem participants to build and test the API connectors.
For most advice firms the quality of the data dictates the quality of the advice process. HPW took the opportunity to clean-up much of their historical and other standing data required to power their business process. Resolving these issues took longer than expected but was time well spent.
PortfolioCloud committed to providing Hewison with a fully customised solution. This customisation ensured a fully fit for purpose product, and will allow HPW to further evolve and advise their processes over time.
HPW are now using PortfolioCloud to power their investment advice process for clients. This includes:
The innovation has significantly reduced costs to serve HPW clients. Advice can now be executed in hours instead of days and a full history is now available at any time. Clients are able to feel connected to their process using SMS or Email to acknowledge or approve advice.
Using Salesforce single sign-on (SSO) the PortfolioCloud application is accessed via a tab in HPW Salesforce application. PortfolioCloud has used the same Lightening interface to ensure a consistent look and feel across the HPW product set.
Using PortfolioCloud in conjunction with the best-of-breed technology, HPW is utilising a digital advice system that provides immediate advice efficiencies, extends their future business reach and comprehensively improves outcomes for their clients. We think this will very much become a blueprint for other firms who are looking to build their own advice ecosystems.
