Ann: Intiger Market Update, page-84

I didn't say the company said robots would replace humans, this whole trail of dialogue started in response to you saying paraplanners will be obsolete. I gave an opinion and examples as to why only one aspect of that job would be.

I don't argue that I would come across as arrogant in my posting on IAM. I guess I just see the lines a little blurred between arrogance and posting from the point of view of actually being in the industry and having been through all this already. I used to outsource everything back office overseas. It was cheaper but it was also a lot more work as its simply not as easy as turning to your side and asking someone to help with something, someone who can do these things instantly and how your practice does things rather than having to wait for an email to be read or get through to someone over the phone. Knowing you can have someone complete something for you mid-meeting if required is very useful, its the little things. I am happy to pay a premium for that but outsourcing was a means to get to the point of being able to afford otherwise. However, outsourcing is still very relevant for overflow work in busy periods.

For the record, I think robots will absolutely replace humans when it comes to simple advice and lower net worth clients. The value add just isn't there for the fees that need to be charged IMO, robo advice will take over there. This is why I have been consistently saying that automating complex SOAs are the key, they are the financial planning clients of the future as the fees charged provide them with much greater value back where you can also justify charging them every 12 months as they can see they benefit from the ongoing relationship.

We get back to my original point that you can outsource admin tasks such as producing the documents themselves. However, in order to outsource these, the information needs to be on a silver platter to the admin to be done by a third party. Either an adviser (or paraplanner) will still need to do this, this is a cost. Again, there is a reason that many paraplanners get paid 6 figures, and it's not because they do admin really quick, there is a high level of knowledge required that an admin staff member on half the money isn't expected to have. We will absolutely outsource to intiger or whoever it is in future that actually automates all SOA generation better than XPLAN already does. The rest you really can take it or leave it IMO, as it seems the industry is.