How Modern Data Management Changes the Game for Wealth Management Firms

Data lays the foundation for your client experience – that’s why data collection, storage, and protection are so important. One recent study found that by 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset.

With client expectations, SEC requirements, and company integrity all on the line, it’s crucial to have a strong data management system built around your company’s goals.

Embracing modern data management can revolutionize your firm’s data systems and create higher efficiency and flexibility every step of the way.

What is Modern Data Management?

“Modern data management” sounds great on paper, but what does it actually mean?

In the past, data was siloed throughout various roles and systems in the average financial services company. You had to rely on a variety of clunky workflows and processes to organize your information. Sharing and using these silos of information often took manual effort, because they couldn’t speak to one another – and even if they did speak to each other, maintaining the integration took time and effort, with no real clarity on what system contained the “true” set of data.

Modern data management offers a cloud-based answer to the issues inherent to those disconnected systems. It’s an approach to your data that allows flexibility, proactiveness, and foresight based on the details of what you know.

When it comes to the technology a wealth management firm uses, modern data management can mean connecting your data through to a data warehouse – all your information goes to one place, where you clean and reconcile it, and then use that to standardize data for all apps.

Why Do Advisors Need Modern Data Management?

Modern data management offers a variety of benefits, from tighter security to actionable insights and everything in between.

Better Security

One of the biggest benefits of cloud-based data management is its increased security and enhanced data privacy compliance. With data archives and restoration options, your information is protected in the event of ransomware or another disaster.

In addition, modern data management allows your firm to know where your data is and understand the flow of that data. In all, this increased awareness leads to tighter security and fewer opportunities for data breaches.

Improved Client Experiences

Centrally managed data can also have an outsized impact on your client relations because you’re able to quickly pull information and view it holistically. Then, you can create hyper-personalized content to provide each client or prospect with the right content at the right moment. And even better, centralized data means that when a client calls in with a question, staff has one place to go to find answers – quickly.

Harnessing data can be massively influential in how your clients experience and receive information. From getting answers faster to improving service, a modern data management system can help your clients feel more seen, which has a lasting impact on your firm. When you can bolster the client experience at your firm with hyper-personalization techniques, client satisfaction, engagement, and retention rates increase.

Operational Efficiency

One of the best features of a centralized data system is eliminating the redundancies between systems. You can streamline work, save time and reduce costs when you don’t need to constantly review the accuracy of your information.

Plus, a report from Harvard Business School shows that data-driven organizations are three times more likely to report significant improvements in decision-making than those who rely less on data.

With an automated data management integration, your team can spend less time on manual data entry and more time on what matters.

Actionable Insights

The holy grail of tech? Insights that lead to action.

That’s why modern data management is so valuable to financial services companies – it organizes your data into logical structures. Rather than just reviewing your information, you have the ability to use it throughout your organization.

How to Implement Modern Data Management Practices into Your Financial institution

There are several steps you can take to get modern data management up and running within your organization.

First off, you’ll need to determine a central hub for your data – this could be your CRM or another system your team prefers. When making your decision, be sure to consider whether your system of choice has the capability to grow with your firm as your data needs evolve.

Next, spend some time focusing on the quality of data you’ll be feeding into that central hub. If you input bad data in one area of your process, you’ll likely have bad data everywhere.

Lastly, it’s best to limit your goals as you get started. It’s easy to try and do everything at once, but your team will end up overwhelmed by the mountains of data available.

Identify your firm’s top priorities and focus on just the data that pertains to those goals. This will help make “big data” small and workable for your team.

Modern data management improves functionality and flexibility within your firm while keeping security at the forefront. Whatever centralized warehouse you choose to build your data center within, these steps can help you make moves based on your firm’s unique goals.

Embrace Data with Nitrogen

Nitrogen can help your financial services firm embrace modern data management through our array of over 40 best-in-class integrations. So if you want to connect your custodial feed into Nitrogen, sync data back and forth across your CRM, attach your reporting and billing engines, and put the Risk Number at the heart of your financial planning platform, we’ve got you covered. Schedule a complimentary tour of Nitrogen today.