TECHNOLOGY TRAPS WEALTH MANAGERS MUST AVOID
ROBOTS IN THE FAMILY OFFICE? NOT AS SCI-FI AS IT SOUNDS
With today’s robotic process automation (RPA) technology, a “digital workforce” could easily take over many family office processes that are still being performed manually, freeing up staff for higher-value work. This article explores opportunities for RPA in family offices and a painless path to increased automation.
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n conversations we’ve had with dozens of family offices, many acknowledge that they would like to operate more efficiently, but that they are somewhat set in their ways. They have people on staff who have been with the office a long time and are used to doing things a certain way. As a result, a lot of their routine, everyday processes are highly manual and time consuming, which raises the risk of errors and delays delivery of important information. Meanwhile, their investment portfolios and entity structures are becoming more complex, their external manager relationships are proliferating, and the number of family members that need attention grows with every generation. Moreover, family offices are vulnerable to the same shortage of operational talent that is plaguing the wealth and asset management sector. As some of those long-time, loyal staffers start thinking about retirement, will capable people be there to take their place? And will their knowledge of “how we’ve always done things” be transferable?
Family offices are ripe for intelligent automation - a combination of robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning - to take over some of the mundane tasks currently being performed by hand. The fact is that many of the routine processes in a family office do not require a lot of human judgment, and therefore should not require any human intervention. Family offices are ripe for intelligent automation - a combination of robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning - to take over some of the mundane tasks currently being performed by hand. This would free people up for more productive pursuits, such as servicing family members or researching investment opportunities, while removing friction and roadblocks from essential but routine processes.
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BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKFORCE The term “robotic” conjures up images of anthropomorphic machines sitting at desks and shuffling paper around. But these robots or “bots” are actually pieces of software that reside inside computers. Collectively, these bots constitute a “digital workforce” that can interpret information, gather, aggregate, and extract data, sort and route emails, and more. The technology may have sounded like science fiction a decade ago, but RPA is quite commonplace today, easy to implement and increasingly cost-effective, delivering ROI in the form of significant efficiency gains and time savings.
Robotic software can even do sophisticated tasks that require some measure of analysis, such as compiling tax forms, due diligence reporting or compliance checks. The digital workforce can be trained to perform a wide variety of repetitive, rules-based tasks - logging and paying household bills, for example, or running payroll. Robotic software can even do sophisticated tasks that require some measure of analysis, such as compiling tax forms, due diligence reporting or compliance checks. Think of the time spent simply downloading information from various investment managers’ portals or data feeds, then collating, formatting and feeding it into an accounting system for reconciliation or to generate reports. That entire process can be automated and completed in a fraction of the time it takes a team. The digital workforce doesn’t replace human talent. On the contrary, it helps people to be more productive and effective in their roles. Digital; workers can perform all the steps in a process up until sign-off, putting operations professionals in the position of