Firstly to fully disclose, we have been clients of IAM for in excess of 2 years, during that time we have transitioned from having our work done by India to Manila.
To provide a different post to all of the over analysis of financial figures and constant navel gazing I thought I would let you know what our experience has been and my thoughts in regard to the future viability of the company.
We initially engaged IAM to offshore repeatable functions, which would then allow us to manage the size of our admin team and to change job descriptions that generated more client liaising duties. The other major advantage is that you can increase the size of your business through acquisition without increasing your head count.
we currently have a range of processes done by the team, these include:
Research on clients existing products.
Production of 100% of our Statements of advice
Production of insurance quotes
Completion of online applications
Production of review documents, including statements of holdings and certificates of currency for insurance
Bookeeping
Numerous ad hoc admin tasks
The information provided is in a timely manner and to a high degree of accuracy, that is not to say there aren't things that we have to go back to them with, but this would be the same if the paraplanner/admin staff were sitting in your office. One of the big advantages is the service level agreements that provide us with the timeframe in which each tasks will be returned, this is met at least 90-95% of the time with generally good reason for the outriders. The flow on is that advisers can plan their follow up meetings with certainly, more meetings more completions more revenue.
I have met the majority of the team, both in person and via the net, the only thing that I can add is that they all seem to be very competent in the role the perform, prior to the hiring I thought key person risk was a significant issue, the expansion of the team has diluted this risk.
In regard to BOOM, I have been providing feedback and also been using the portal for the last few months, the continual development has got it to the point where I believe it is a very usable tool. Via the software we are no confident that we can upload information and request all of the advice/administration tasks.
The real game changer will be the continued development of LILLY, that is the ability to automate the production of advice documentation, the company have previously advised that this is a priority and they are working to bring this to market. this will be a disrupter.
So do I think the company will be ultimately successful, I cant answer that, but what I can say is that the development over the last two years have put the company in the position where they are one of the market leaders in the evolution of advice production and administration, their ultimate success will be based on their ability to continue to develop.
Just like every shareholder I am disappointed at the current share price, this has both been a result of issues previously discussed but more importantly the work of up and down rampers who have a self interest. The lesson from that is read the posts for entertainment but be diligent in your own personal research.
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