Jenny Adams, Editor in Chief, FundForum International
This year’s focus was how to stay relevant for current and future customers. Kickstarted by keynote MIT Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, global expert on the pros and cons of the digital economy and the implications for society and business.
Some of the best solutions are found in the following pages. Here is a snap-shot of the key take-aways.
Asset managers and wealth managers must develop new partnerships, platforms and co-create solutions to genuine customer, societal and environmental challenges.
Think leaders of investment management partnering insurers, health insurers, private and banks, retailers, automotive manufacturers, pharma, local, smart cities and local governments.
In parallel smart leaders understand that culture, attracting new talent and diverse leadership becomes a bottom-line issue.
As well as exploring how the distribution process is changing across private bank/ insurer/ retail fund buyers and institutional investors.
Top heads of marketing and digital will be responding to new challenges by focussing on brand distinctiveness and delivering measurable value to institutional and retail customers.
They will be keeping old cash cow fund products to HNWs while diversifying demographics and processes around value, transparency to retail markets and communicating whole message and value down to IFA/Paraplanner advisor level.
CMOs will be preparing for the emergence of customer dashboards ushering in new digital customer platforms and personalised financial wellbeing solutions.
As regulators mandate suitability and value, winners will focus on communicating clear propositions, suitability and outcomes.
As asset manager and wealth manager search where are returns and explore new asset allocations, new dashboards will show Transparent Value of Funds compared to cash.
What are the big new investment ideas and macro themes - From thematic investments to ESG, illiquid assets and active alpha FundForum’s 350 fund buyers and asset owners looked to compare the best Fund Buyer Solutions.
EU mandated change around systemic climate risk of underlying investments and what corporates doing to change heralds a new investment universe.
For leading asset manager and wealth manager COOs the main story is around the evolution of transparency for distribution ops.
Around the innovations in reporting, scenario risk and developing new skills and solution at the intersection of data science and human decision making.
Applying wider tech solutions and building integrated collaborative platforms across the supply chain.
Asset management as we have known it for the last three decades is changing. FundForum International 2019 showcased and revealed how a new investment management industry is evolving and finding new solutions for the retail investor.
One where financial wellness is becoming a central goal, driven by governments tackling the impact of longevity, climate change and the opportunities and challenges brought about by AI of the future of work.
There are fantastic growth opportunities for firms at the cutting edge of building new partnerships, platforms and personalisation. The following pages contains some some of the most interesting examples from 2019.