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Schwab trying to wow advisers with technology progress at Impact

Schwab Advisor Services is showing off the first of its completed integrations with Salesforce.com and has announced new…

Schwab Advisor Services is showing off the first of its completed integrations with Salesforce.com and has announced new partnerships, among other advisory technology-related news at its annual Impact conference.

These are the most significant developments announced in months as part of the Schwab Intelligent Integration initiative.

That project is meant to both attract new breakaway advisory firms to custody with Schwab and help the company retain the more than 6,000 advisers it already works with by providing them an array of technology choices.

These range from a turnkey platform built, managed and hosted by Schwab to one of three fairly open systems that allow advisers more choice in terms of selecting best of breed third-party technology offerings.

Among the enhancements that are being shown off on the Impact show floor is a new workflow library for Salesforce.com that is to be a key part of the Schwab Intelligent Integration initiative.

Schwab Intelligent Technologies, a subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corporation, is also announcing a new relationship with independent software vendor Salentica, which already offers a highly customized version of Microsoft Dynamics that is used by wealth and asset management firms.

Salentica provides advisers with a customized version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM (called Salentica Advisor Desk).and is the first Microsoft ISV to participate in the Schwab OpenView Gateway. This offering will be available as either a desktop or hosted system.

Salentica is also in the process of developing an integration plug-in for firms that have purchased Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 directly from Microsoft that will provide both the integrations with Schwab data and customizations specific to advisory firms.

“What’s really exciting about this relationship with Salentica is that it will allow advisers who choose to work with Salentica and those who prefer to work directly with Microsoft to reap the benefits of integration with Schwab’s custody data. Adding to our work with salesforce.com and Junxure, advisers will now have even more choice and flexibility,” said Neesha Hathi, vice president of technology solutions for Schwab Advisor Services.

In an interview Ms. Hathi said that Schwab might work with at least one other ISV in the Microsoft Dynamics arena.

She explained that because RIA firms often follow significantly different business models that it made sense to have as much breadth in terms of offerings as possible.

WORKFLOW LIBRARIES

I continue to have my doubts that Salesforce.com will be the right choice for many smaller RIA firms, not because it is inferior in any way but because it can be so complex to tailor for their needs.

With its turnkey iteration of Salesforce, part of the Schwab OneView Integrated Office platform, the company has baked in (or will have baked in, it should be generally available by the end of the year) a lot of the workflows an adviser might need to make the most of the CRM.

These workflows include precise task lists and assigned roles for the most common activities in advisers’ offices to help them process information and do so in a repeatable fashion..

Part of its big announcement here at the conference has been introducing the Schwab OpenView Workflow Library, which includes comprehensive best practices and customized workflows both for working with Schwab’s turnkey Salesforce offering and with the version of the Schwab OpenView Gateway that includes Salesforce.

The first five available workflows in the library focus on business development, referrals, initial contacts, discovery meetings, commitment meetings, and new account set-up.

It should be noted that TD Ameritrade Institutional, as part of its open API initiative has built a suite of 50 customized workflows in its own iteration with Salesforce.com. I have yet to compare and contrast these offerings but it is interesting to me that the custodians are going to great lengths to roll them out.

Anthony Schembri, a managing director with Clarfeld Financial Advisors Inc. has spent the last year and a half rolling out a highly customized version of Salesforce.com for the firm.

Clarfeld, which started life as an accounting firm with a handful of employees in 1981 is probably a perfect fit for Salesforce.

It now has a staff of 75, almost 400 investment management clients and manages $3 billion in assets.

A big part of Mr. Schembri mission in adopting a new CRM was to reduce the 25 different systems used by various business units within the firm. These included accounting, cash management, investment management, financial planning and insurance among others.

ClarfeId relies on both Schwab and TD as its primary custodians so he join the Schwab pilot in recent months.

“We are currently running a live version of the Schwab Open View Gateway that integrates Salesforce with the Advisor Center website, and from what I’ve tested so far the integration is very tight. Specifically, at the client household level, I am able to view live client account information,” he wrote me in an e-mail.

He added that the firm is also currently participating in the workflow beta and will likely have some feedback on a few that he is testing.

Mr. Schembri and other advisers I have spoken with that are working with TD Ameritrade on their Salesforce integration said it is too soon to be overly judgmental or try to say who is doing a better job as each remains in the early stages of development.
In my interview with her Ms. Hathi said that additional front- and back-office workflows would continue to be added throughout 2012 to the Schwab library.

She reiterated the point made in Schwab’s prepared statement on the matter, that the workflows will be free to all advisers that custody with Schwab Advisor Services (and available both with the turnkey Salesforce iteration and the OpenView version).

While she was not sure on the actual number Ms.Hathi that Schwab had both staffed up and retrained personnel to assure there would be enough technical assistance available no matter which solution advisers chose.

Brian Shenson, managing director of technology marketing and business management for Advisor Services, took me through an online demo of the workflows and integrations recently.

He explained that prior to the integration a Salesforce user would have had to go into the Schwab Advisor Center site to see alerts that are now on display in the Salesforce OpenView gateway integration interface.

“We are really trying to bring the workflow straight into the CRM and these sorts of capabilities we think will actually reinforce the behavior of having advisers more fully utilize the CRM,” he said.

With the integration all data is now real time with one catch.

“Everything is in a sense pull, when an adviser requests information on a page the request is going from Salesforce and then going to Schwab Advisor Center and there the adviser’s security is being renewed — we store very little data in the Salesforce platform itself, every time the page is invoked it is refreshed,” said Mr. Shenson.

In other words pages are only updated each time an adviser refreshes that page. Mr. Shenson said that Schwab is making sure clients are aware of this distinction.

THE REST OF THE STORY, JUNXURE, IPHONES ET AL

In our recent technology survey we found that a full 20% of RIA InvestmentNews readers are using Junxure from CRM Software Inc.

Junxure is one of the three CRM choices that make up the Schwab OpenView Gateway set of offerings (again the other two are Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce).

And another big piece of the conference news is that the Junxure integration with Schwab is now entering the pilot phase and currently planned for general availability in early 2012.

In a demonstration of this integration, also run by Schwab’s Brian Shenson, the point was made that key, at least for now, is getting Schwab data coursing into the CRM system in real time.

“Junxure clients will find that their experiences are consistently familiar but with all the Schwab data right now at their fingertips,” he said.

Also participating in the demo was Greg Friedman, the founder of CRM Software Inc. which created Junxure. He is also an adviser and principal of wealth management firm Private Ocean.

“Being able to quickly look at transactions right then is incredibly important to advisers, especially these days, not having to tell a client, give me a minute and I will call you back,” Mr. Friedman said.

Prior to the integration advisers using Junxure had to rely on day-old holdings data from Schwab.

While it might go largely unnoticed by many advisers once it is set up (a process that is supposed to take literally seconds), Junxure security credentials are now seen and recognized by Schwab Advisor Center and vice versa without advisers having to take action.

Mr. Friedman was quick to point out that these enhancements represented just the beginning.

“This is just version 1.0, there will plenty of additional enhancements coming soon,” he added.

The focus on technology continues with other new online capabilities on display at the conference including Schwab’s upcoming mobile application for the iPhone, which was being previewed at the conference.

There have also been several enhancements to the Schwab Alliance web site that supports clients of advisers who custody assets with Schwab Advisor Services.

“We continue to make significant technology investments geared to help advisers increase their firms’ productivity and improve the service they are able to offer to their clients,” said Steve Hirsch, vice president of technology for Charles Schwab.

The first Schwab Advisor Center Mobile app will enable advisers to access client balances, positions, and history through their iPhone.

In an interview with Mr. Hirsch, he said that the iPhone represented the natural choice because surveys of advisers found it was favor two to one over Android smart phones. He did not rule out an Android version but efforts for now would focus on improvements to the iPhone application after it was rolled out in 2012.

Advisers can search by account name or number, access recently viewed information and find service team contact information.

Schwab is also adding several new customization features to schwaballiance.com.

One of the new features is the ability for advisers to choose to have a notice displayed before a client initiates a trade or move money request, encouraging the client to contact their adviser.

Advisers can also now choose to have their firm logo and contact information (office address, phone number, e-mail address and web site address) displayed on the site.

An upcoming feature for schwaballiance.com that is being announced at the conference is a new Limited Custom View option.

This will allow advisers to further customize their clients’ web site experience, by choosing whether to provide clients with full access to schwaballiance.com, including account information, statements, account service features, trading, move money capabilities and third party research, or to the Limited View.

The Limited View will include all the same features, except for trading, outbound move money capabilities and third party research. This new feature will be available in the first half of 2012.

Mr. Hirsch said that the changes to the alliance site had long been requested, or at least some controls available to advisers for some time.

“We know the site is extremely important to advisers, within the last 90 days we have recorded more than 750,000 client visits to the site,” he said.

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