After a great deal of effort and teamwork, the
InvestmentNews Technology Directory will be introduced online Wednesday.
The directory will feature detailed profiles of products designed for the advisory community. It already has more than 100 listed.
I encourage all of our readers who have an interest in the latest tech offerings to visit
Investment News.com/techdirectory and begin exploring.
The idea behind the technology directory started when I joined
InvestmentNews almost five years ago. I wondered why such an important source of information for financial advisers didn't already exist.
Well, now one does.
Our readers are the beneficiaries of a great deal of planning and hard work from our dedicated data team, which built this directory from scratch.
To begin with, the use of the directory is free to our readers. It is also free for participating vendor firms that want their products to be included.
PRODUCT REVIEWS
The tech directory also is a place where our readers will be able to read product reviews from their peers. Although there will be links to my latest stories on products, you will also be able to write your own reviews of products and, of course, see independent commentary from other advisers.
The bottom line is that this site was created to be your directory.
It is a tool for advisers to see the basic capabilities of tech products gathered in one place.
We encourage readers to be honest in their assessments. Feel free to praise a product offering, but also feel confident to write about a bad experience, as well.
My hope is that all the reviews, both positive and negative, will be fair and accurate.
To be sure, we will enforce a policy of removing content that we deem to be antagonistic, fails to substantiate criticisms, or that contains profanity.
Anyone looking to post a review will need to be a registered user. However, no registration is needed if you simply want to peruse the content in the directory.
Once a review is posted, vendors will be afforded the opportunity to respond.
Our goal is to provide a forum for the conversation and to make it a part of the adviser's purchasing research and buying decision.
We think that advisers have a right to know if many of their colleagues have experienced poor customer service from a particular vendor, and frankly, we know of no other publication doing something like this.
WEB TOUR
We followed a standard web design philosophy in putting together the directory's pages. It is a two-column approach.
On the left side, you will find search choices. At the upper left is a keyword search box.
Immediately below that is a list of eight product types (this will more than likely expand in the future). Currently, you can view products in the following categories:
account aggregation,
bundled solutions, compliance,
CRM,
document management,
financial planning,
portfolio management, and
portfolio rebalancing.
Below that, you will find the “By Integration” feature.
Once you run a search or make a selection on the left, your results will come up on the right-hand column.
By default, when you first visit the directory page, you will be greeted by an alphabetical listing of all the tech products. You can click “Vendor” or “Type” under the “Product Directory” menu bar to re-sort the listing to your desire preferences.
Additionally, selecting a link from the listing will open a profile with additional information, including a web address for the company site.
What's more, if you are looking to make a purchasing decision based on another product that you already use, you can search for products that integrate with that specific tech product.
The data team is planning to put together a brief video tutorial in the coming days to help users better understand how best to navigate the site, so keep an eye out for that on the main Tech Directory page.
In my mind, this directory will always be a work in progress. For that reason, your suggestions and comments are always welcomed.
I encourage you to visit the website and continue to do so, as the information will be changing daily.
(Click here to explore the InvestmentNews Tech Directory.)
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