Some time ago, doesn’t matter when, I was doing a training session for some guys from a provider along with a friend. After lunch, to beat the graveyard lull, we decided to do an “ask us anything” session during which they could ask us about competitors, gossip and scuttlebutt or, well, anything really.
Most delegates, especially if they are in sales or marketing functions, ask about the competitors that cause them the most pain on a day-to-day basis. Some ask about functionality gaps, others about pricing.
This lot were different. They only asked about themselves and how they were seen out there in the market.
The reason for this is that they were going through the first stages of re-platforming and they were wondering how it would affect them when they got their shiny new technology in place.
I explained that although they were all lovely people who always gave up their seats to old people on public transport, they shouldn’t be surprised if advisers who didn’t use them already gave them a wide berth until the whole re-platforming thing was done and bedded in. I may have said that I’d do the same thing if I were an adviser, which for the sake of all your PI premiums you should be thankful I’m not.
Trade secret
This caused some consternation and shaking of heads. ‘But it won’t make any difference while it’s happening!’ said one delegate, and then told The Great Lie.
The Great Lie really is a great lie, and it is one IT directors have to practise for years before they’re allowed to tell it in the real world. I’m going to tell it to you now, and if there’s no column next month it’s because I’ve been assassinated by a team of pasty people with serious Minecraft habits. Here we go.
“Yeah, well, it really doesn’t affect the day to day, right, because the development happens on a different system over here, right, and we test that somewhere else again. Then when it’s all working, right, we run it alongside the existing system, OK, and gradually switch bits of the old one off and the new one on, so it takes over all seamless like. Don’t worry, we do this all the time.”
This is reassuring for people because it sounds plausible, and because it’s much better than the truth, which is that re-platforming is a screaming nightmare. Even if everyone is at the top of their game and never even takes a seat on public transport in case an old or gravid person gets on (look it up) then it’s a screaming nightmare.
The only analogy I can think of is trying to replace the carburettor on your vehicle. While driving it. Round the Nürburgring. At 120 miles per hour.
It’s natural for anyone going through this to try and minimise its importance to users of the system. But that’s a mistake. During any re-platforming weird things are going to go wrong. Someone working on making address fields sit very slightly to the left of where they were will find they’ve knocked out the entire adviser charging functionality suite or something similar. This will happen; it always does (OK, maybe not the address thing). Teams are getting smarter all the time as they get practised at doing it, but the systems get more complicated too, and everyone’s learning all the time.
If you’re an adviser and you use a platform, there’s a very good chance you will go through or have gone through or are going through a big technology change on your primary platform (using platform in its widest sense). Here’s a list of who I think is where:
Recently completed
Nucleus – upgrade from Bravura Talisman to Sonata
AJ Bell – core processing moved from proprietary to GBST
FNW – moved pensions to GBST
Hornbuckle – just gone live with FNZ
On the go
Ascentric – moving from BlueButton to Bravura
ATS – moving to GBST
OMW – moving to IFDS BlueDoor
And that’s just a few. Lots of Sipp companies and lifecos are also moving around.
How you deal with this is crucial. It’s tempting to say something anodyne about ‘positive engagement’, and I probably have in the past. But that’s really only half the story. I think advisers and their staff have now got to a stage (and I’m generalising horribly here) where they do understand in far more detail what’s going on inside platforms and product technology. They may not know why something’s not great, or totally great, but they could probably work it out if they spent the time.
The challenge, then, for everyone is to shift the grounds of how we think about all this away from a combative commercial space over to one which is about giving expert users exactly what they need. To dig deeper into my tired motorsport analogy from earlier, the pit crew don’t keep facts about the performance of the vehicle from the F1 driver; they tell him everything so he can adjust to the reality of what’s in front of him. No one is worried (at that moment) about how something will play on the front page of trade papers, or whether the guys at Red Bull will laugh at them; it’s all about getting on with it.
Pace changer
I think something like that might be what we need as the pace of major system change and re-platforming picks up. We’ll see more happening across platforms, lifecos and Sipp cos, with sunset being a driver. We can either try to get through this as providers move onto their strategic technology ‘stack’ for the next few years, or we can tear strips out of each other.
Here’s how it breaks down by participant:
Providers: don’t gild the lily. Your users (adviser and end) are your lifeblood; so don’t take them for fools. Be really open. Maybe consider weekly or monthly updates, or webinars, or anything that makes users feel involved. If the soft stuff hits the air distribution device, front up – not to the world, but to users. Nucleus had some big bumps along the way with its upgrade according to advisers we’ve talked to, but in the main the communication was pretty good which took a lot of the sting out of it.
Advisers: don’t overreact. No one wants to make your life harder. Bad service you may have had in the past has nothing to do, in the main, with what’s happening as a major tech refresh goes through. Don’t conflate the two. In the middle of a refresh is a very bad time to stalk out to a competitor. Like everything in life – this too shall pass. Push the provider to share detail on what’s going on. And if you really are cross, just make sure you run to something, not from something.
Competitors: there but for the grace of God go you. No crowing, please, if folk are having a tough time. You may have had your pain; you may have it to come. It’s a tough old world out there with no quarter asked or given, but try to keep the inelegant stuff to yourselves.
One of the great things about the platform market as it matures is that we can get into this sort of stuff in much more detail. We’re watching a multi-trillion pound industry gradually – far too gradually – remake itself from the inside out. That’s a privilege to witness.
It’s a time, then, for being constructive, for being measured, but most of all for being really open with the poor schmucks whose job it is to look after the poor schmucks who trust everyone in the chain with their hard-earned.
Mark Polson is principal of platforms and specialist consultancy at the lang cat
