vast majority of advisors spend their
time on Windows PCs and in Windows apps, the ability to seamlessly
move from PC to tablet to phone may
appeal to advisors.
We’ll have to wait and see how
this scenario plays out, but the
potential is certainly there for a
Windows phone to finally win over
financial advisors.
TABLET GROWTH
What about tablets? Half of all advisors
now own a tablet — and of those, 81%
own an iPad, 15% own an Android and
7% own a Windows tablet. The iPad
was strongest among independent
RIAs and weakest among insurance
agent advisors. Android tablets were
strongest among dually registered
advisors and lowest among bank-affiliated advisors. Only 8% of advisors said
they plan to buy a Windows 8 tablet
over the next 12 months but, as of
the survey’s close, advisors had not
yet seen a Windows 8 tablet, so those
numbers might rise.
CPA advisors are twice as likely as
the average advisor to purchase a Windows 8 tablet soon. We think that’s
because CPAs spend so much time in
MS Excel, and Windows 8 tablets work
natively with MS Excel.
Advisors gave tablets lower ROI
scores across the board when compared with their phones. There could
be a number of reasons for this. One
is cost: In the case of smartphones,
you’re buying a phone anyway and,
with a contract, the incremental cost
of the premium phone may be perceived as acceptable. In the case of a
tablet, you are not only buying another
device, but in many cases you are buying another cellular data plan — so the
investment itself is high.
We also think most advisors want
to use their devices to interact with
Microsoft Office apps, custodial apps
or the industry-specific apps they use
daily. Yet there are no Microsoft Office
Financial-Planning.com
apps available for the iPad yet. Workarounds are available, but they are far
from seamless. This may lower the ROI
in the eyes of some. Industry-specific
apps, meanwhile, have only been on
the market for a relatively short time,
and some offer only a limited set of
functionality. As these apps get better,
perceived ROI should rise.
As with smartphones, we will be
watching closely in the months ahead
to see if Windows 8 tablets can win
over a larger share of the financial services market. We don’t see Windows 8
overtaking the iPad any time soon,
but we do believe the number of advisors owning Windows tablets could
increase significantly by next year.
In particular, the ability to work with
native Office applications, store them
to the Microsoft cloud and then access
them later, from other devices, looks
very appealing.
PERCEIVED ROI
Another interesting result was the
varying perceptions of ROI with
respect to CRM among the various
user groups. When we asked independent RIAs, 36% said that they enjoyed
an above-average return on their CRM
investment, and another 51% said they
got an average ROI. Only 16% complained of below-average results. The
numbers for dually registered reps and
independents affiliated with a B-D varied slightly, but not by much.
On the other hand, when we looked
at CPAs, just 9% of respondents said
that they received above-average ROI,
63% said they received average ROI,
and a full 28% said that they received
below-average ROI.
Why were their results so much
poorer? One possibility: Of the groups
mentioned above, the majority of
CPA firms surveyed were managing
$25million or less; by comparison,
49% of independent RIAs manage
$50 million or more. We suspect that
most of our CPA respondents are solo
What CRM software do you use?
Microsoft Outlook
Redtail
ACT!
SalesForce
Junxure
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
ACT4Advisors
Advisor Assistant
Goldmine
Lotus Notes
ProTracker
IAS
Tamarac Advisor CRM
Wealth Advisor CRM
E*Assist
Grendel
XLR8 CRM
Zoho CRM
Other
None
35%
14%
9%
8%
6%
3%
3%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
18%
13%
What portfolio management soft ware
or service do you use?
Morningstar Office
Albridge
Schwab PortfolioCenter
PrincipalCAMS/Morningstar
Envestnet
Advent AXYS
Black Diamond
Investigo
Orion
Advent APX
Advisors Assistant
AssetBook
CapTools
IAS
Portfolio Director
Portfolio Pathway
PowerAdvisor
Tamarac Advisor
Adhesion
FinFolio
Other
None
19%
15%
11%
7%
5%
3%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
18%
25%
