If You Build It, Will They Come?

As wealth managers battle for assets, CIOs are increasingly turning to outside vendors to build best-of-breed technology solutions.

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE?

RBC Dominion Securities made the decision in 2001 to focus on the front office of its wealth-management business. Hoping to find the same market expertise it had found with some of its off-the-shelf back-office tools, RBC sought a partner for help. "The competitive advantage in wealth management is about product offerings and how you service the client, not necessarily being the best software builder in the world," says John Tracy, manager of strategic initiatives for the firm.

With confidence that many vendors had developed a grasp on the front-office wealth-management market, and were bringing technology to the table to address it, RBC looked to x.eye, an Ontario, Canada-based vendor, for a front-office solution. RBC opted to take on x.eye's portfolio-management and contact-management products to replace at least six different legacy systems that the firm had "cobbled together," says Tracy.

The implementation process ensued, with a goal of 3,000 desktops, broken into two installations. Acknowledging the need for the vendor to understand the business processes behind the technology it would be installing, Tracy says he put together a training team of more than 30 people with both x.eye technology expertise and RBC business understanding.

Strict time-line adherence also helped the rollout, he continues, noting aggressive deadlines for turning off legacy applications. However, "That has to be taken in context, as we're as aggressive with this group as we can be," he explains, since financial advisers can be adverse to any change that causes distractions from client servicing, especially when implemented all at once. "The cultural implications of this business are incredibly unique, since advisers see themselves as business partners," he adds. "We've got to get buy-in [from each financial adviser]," which is no easy task for a large firm, says Tracy.

One area that RBC decided to keep in-house though, was its integration layer between its front- and back-office systems. "We're picky about our feed and design loading process because we know our data better than anyone," says Tracy.

Lochan from CGE&Y says that this is often the case in the industry. "You're not seeing outsourcing getting into middleware and data," he says. "This is very competitive. Even in outsourced solutions, the data will stay within the host company."

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