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ranks or is tied for first across all categories except bank-affiliated advisors,
where NaviPlan holds the top spot.
MoneyTree and NaviPlan were
other popular financial planning software choices among independents. As
has been true in the past, Zywave products (such as NaviPlan and Profiles) and
SunGard show strength with dually
registered advisors, advisors employed
by a B-D and affiliated independents.
Overall, 69% of advisors said that
they do not use rebalancing software.
Although the use of rebalancing soft-
benefits, and we believe the ROI of
such programs is substantial and indis-
putable — but they are more difficult to
learn and use.
AGING OPERA TING SYSTEMS
Windows 7 usage was highest among
independent RIAs at 66%, which indicates they are willing to invest in technology to stay competitive. Dually registered reps and CPAs were essentially
tied at 65%. CPAs also log the highest
Windows XP usage, at 46%.
From this we can conclude that our
Do technology decisions made by independent
RIAs differ from those of dually registered
advisors or those affiliated with broker-dealers?
ware has increased steadily over the last
several years, adoption still seems far too
low. We strongly suspected that ease of
use, or lack thereof, was an impediment
to growth. Yet only 19% of total respondents said rebalancing software presented above-average difficulty.
So what might be going on? We sus-
pect that different groups are rebalanc-
ing differently, using different applica-
tions. When we looked more deeply, it
turns out that independents and CPAs
were using more sophisticated, loca-
tion-aware, tax-sensitive rebalancing
applications with much greater fre-
quency than other groups. These more
sophisticated programs have many
CPAs are frugal. They are buying new
equipment, but they are not throw-
ing out their old computers; they are
repurposing them. Windows 7 usage
was lowest, by a wide margin, among
bank-affiliated reps, who still rely
heavily on Windows XP. This suggests
to us that they are not investing suffi-
ciently in IT infrastructure. Windows
XP was released in 2001 — an eternity
in technology years. It also raises some
security concerns, since OS security
has changed significantly since then.
We’d worry a little bit less about these
bank-affiliated reps if they planned
to upgrade to Windows 8 in the com-
ing months, but they ranked dead last
in that category as well, with only 4%
saying they planned to upgrade to Win-
dows 8 in the next year. (Of course, 71%
of the group said they don’t know or
they are not sure, so there is still some
hope.)
SOCIAL MEDIA
One new question this year focused on
social media usage. LinkedIn was the
most popular social media site by far; in
fact, among bank-affiliated advisors, it
was the only social site with a substantial following. LinkedIn is most heavily
used by independent RIAs, probably
