I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.
— Wayne Gretzky, ice hockey player

This year is bringing us satisfaction in many areas. One of which is that Objectway was recognized in more than one Gartner report during last twelve months and, to us, that’s a good reason to be happy.

Pick Your Digital Banking Platform

The August 2018 Gartner Market Guide for Digital Banking Platforms recognized Objectway as a Representative Digital Banking Platform Vendor, among 29 digital banking platform vendors included in the report.

A Launch Platform

We see that digital is an imperative today for banks; while a sensible approach may suggest going for a soft adoption of digital, or a partial one, the long term calls for a wholly digitally-run business. That moment, a good and scalable digital banking platform will be an imperative too, and the most experienced players will likely have a better time.

Holistic Advice and Up-to-date Technology Needed

Objectway was also recognized as a Representative Vendor for Financial Planning, Portfolio Management and All-in-One Wealth Platforms in the report Integrate Advisor Supporting Technologies Into Digital Platforms to Accelerate Advisor Adoption (December 2018) by Gartner.

A key finding from the report is, “Although advisors believe most supporting technologies to be high value, adoption can be thwarted because the technology is outdated or obsolete, doesn’t improve the client experience or is too time intensive to use effectively, causing advisors to look for alternate solutions.” The report goes on to state, “Firms will need to be aware as well that although these tools are considered highly valuable, they also come with risks, the two most important being scalability of systems to planned volume and vulnerability to security threats.” We take this to mean that there are risks in scaling technology, and maybe some resistance to change.

Holistic, Best-of-Breed

The Gartner report lists a number of existing advisor technologies that are  requiring integration, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Financial Planning, Portfolio Management, Performance and Client Reporting, Market Data and Analytics, Document Management and Marketing Tools, Proposal Workflow Tools, Social Media Tools, and All-in-One Wealth Platforms. We are very happy to be named in the Financial Planning, Portfolio Management, and All-in-One Wealth Platforms categories as a Representative Vendor. We see this as going all the way to create a capable wealth management platform enabling holistic advice as one of our goals.

Digital Empathy and Client-Facing Technology

We were also quite glad to be mentioned by Gartner in their report Enhance the Collaboration Experience in Client-Facing Technology to Improve Digital Empathy (December 2018).

Collaboration is the key

According to Gartner,

“When wealth firms progress toward digital transformation, they must concentrate on eliminating today’s pain points while positioning for tomorrow’s promise. One area of focus, and perhaps one of the most pressing from both a line-of-business requirement as well as a technology challenge, is the need to enhance collaboration features in today’s client-facing technologies while preparing to eventually integrate them into wider offerings of client-supporting tools.”

We see that clients of any net worth value, High Net Worth included, positively wish to be able to manage their investment and data by themselves, at a certain extent. According to the Gartner report, “As smartphones become necessities and in some cases addictions for average clients, firms need to begin considering mobile applications and interactions with their clients.”

Digital to the Core

In this report, Gartner identifies us as a core wealth-technology vendor. We believe that our mobile apps could be chosen by wealth firms willing to bring more digital empathy at the table, to follow the demand from clients and offer them self-management and collaboration tools in line with their expectations.

A Summer of Work

In August, all things usually relax a bit. This August, like every year, we keep working. We have much to develop, implement, and innovate in order to continue our success.

The reason is simple: we believe that a Gartner report usually points at where the puck is going to be.

Gartner Disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.