SW: In your day-to-day conversations with advisers what are the key themes that emerge? Where do they need your support?
MM: There’s a big focus on growth amongst our advisers. Where is it coming from? Where will they find new clients but also where can they find efficiencies and control costs? How can they find the right path into new markets (mortgage to wealth). This is a profession in which firms need the right structure in place and the right technology but that’s expensive and investment is therefore needed. When it comes to business development, finding new clients & opportunities is key for our advisers.
Professional development for those involved is also crucial. For us, we’ve had our academy since 2015. Through it, we’ve now brought well in excess of 600 people through it to become qualified. Overall, the advice profession needs growth and all of us involved need to do more to bring through new talent and new advisers. The academy was our opportunity to do that and we’re proud of its achievements. Some of those individuals who join us through our academy have come from a range of different backgrounds – ex-soldiers, ex-footballers, ex-chefs are all evident. They are often then working alongside administrators with an experience of adviser businesses. It is such a powerful model. This sentence needs re-writing as not sure what it’s trying to say.
SW: As the UK slowly emerges from the global pandemic the need for advice is greater than ever. What is the openwork partnership doing to close the advice gap?
MM: I’m hugely interested in this question. We are commercial businesses of course and there are limits to what we can achieve. However, I’m pleased to see some of the work going on with things like workplace pensions, help to buy ISAs etc. at government level. The advice gap exists of course, as do shortfalls in the amount of savings and pension funds which people have built up. Looking across to Asia, you see a materially different approach to saving and the way people approach long term investing. What’s helpful for us here in the UK is to increase the availability of advisers and advice. I believe it’s also important for those advisers to represent those communities which they are advising in to. That’s why I feel so strongly about our academy. I believe that a 30 year old looking for professional advice is probably going to benefit from engaging with an adviser who at least looks and feels a bit like them and shares and understands their priorities. That’s not to say that someone older can’t help, of course they can. But the industry does need to try a little bit harder to bring diversity through.
Facing into the advice gap, we’re exploring digital propositions and robo advice alongside the core advice models. I’m not as threatened by robo as I often hear others say. I don’t see it as a competitor to advice. It’s filling the gaps in areas which are commercially non-viable to a professional advice.
Over the years, I think a lot of advisers have been resistant to technology, worried that by providing others with access to information and detail could easily mean that clients may not need their input. There’s absolutely no evidence around that happening at all. They’ve realised that actually the two things work together as a value-add. Real-time valuations for example are a big help in the advice process and certainly don’t diminish the role of the adviser. If anything, the client is better informed as a result and asks better questions.
The more that we can do as a business and as a profession to engage more clients in the advice process then the happier I will be.
Hear the conversation. You can watch our full conversation with Mike Morrow here.
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About Mike Morrow
Mike joined The Openwork Partnership in July 2015 as Wealth Director from his position of Sales & Marketing Director at Ascentric. Mike’s extensive career includes time as Head of Platform and Investment Distribution at AXA and HSBC where he was Head of Insurance & Investment. He brings extensive experience of the wealth management and protection distribution area to The Openwork Partnership. Mike sits on the Board of The Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association (PIMFA) the UK’s leading trade association for firms that provide investment management and financial advice to everyone from individuals and families to charities, pension funds and companies
