Tim Walton, platform integration manager at Aviva UK, believes training and raising awareness among their staff on how to help advisers adopt and integrate data services is imperative: “The third parties we integrate with are very extensive and there’s lots of information on our website. We do encourage both our internal staff to look at it to make sure they are aware of it. We’ve also been running Fintech Fridays since 2020. It’s important to raise awareness to all staff, whatever the role they have within Aviva around third party tech”.
Walton also raised the importance of making use of client data: “One thing that is also really important is to address the number of intermediaries, large and small, who don’t make the use of client data you’re entitled to through these services. We have more firms not consuming back their own client data than do by a significant margin.”
These issues highlight to tech vendors, platforms and providers, that they must build the appropriate infrastructure to help more advisers adopt these services and use them properly. Having a point of contact to help guide them during the process is essential before, during and after integrating new systems.
What can advisers do themselves to either upskill or increase their own level of support?
The session explored the actions that advisers can take to upskill themselves and keep abreast of the latest integration developments. Claire Thomson believes keeping in touch with your network is an important way to help with upskilling: “If you’ve got a network of peers in the industry, speaking to other people as well is beneficial because we may all be different businesses, but we all have the same goals.”
Firmly understanding one’s own processes was mentioned as a fundamental step in the journey as that will help to identify any gaps in the technology being used and will also help to inform the approach the firm should take when implementing integrations. Some pointed out that advisers need to ask themselves key questions such as what they want the structure to look like and who within the organisation should have access to certain areas of the system.
The forum also noted the wider availability of information sourced from guides and websites as a way for advisers to enhance their understanding of data services, underlining that particular attention needs to be placed on how data services integrate with back-office systems.
What more do you want to see from technology vendors and your back-office providers?
Thomson commented: “It’s back to this transparency and honesty piece. If you want to integrate, it’s them having an implementation or a customer success wrap up team that will help you best use your technology.”
