I do not believe anyone will deny that we are in the midst of digital disruption – or that businesses embracing technology will benefit, while those who do not will lag behind.
Technology undoubtedly has the potential to make business more efficient, introduce new business models and broadly stimulate the economy.
It’s the primary driver of all the advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and the internet of things.
Without technology we would not be ordering Ubers from our phonesWithout technology we would not be ordering Ubers from our phones, accessing account information by voice, or getting updates on latest offers on our computer screens. But culture is the biggest hurdle to all of this change that technology innovation has brought.
Despite these benefits being widely acknowledged, there is still an underlying fear that the technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – such as AI – will make jobs disappear.
That fear is mostly unfounded, as many businesses who have already invested in this technology have seen that it automates repetitive tasks and helps employees to become more efficient, work more intelligently and free up their time to be more creative and focused.
Technology such as AI will also bring new jobs to the world – so rather than taking jobs, it will essentially lead to job displacement, indicating that employees will need to be upskilled and retrained to fit into this new reality.
The human touch also extends to the way employees view technology and adopt to the benefits it brings.
Without the right mindset and culture, technology will only provide weak results at possibly high costs.
The transformation of business remains critical, including people’s perception of technology as well as their understanding and skills needed to optimally use it.
Focus on the attitudes and behaviours of your employees and then enhance existing business processes.
If you can not get a paradigm shift in culture and process, do not waste time looking at digital technologies.
In the future, successful companies that will thrive in the digital era will be the ones who are able to harness, grow and unleash the very human elements of creativity, imagination, and empathy within themselves and their employees.
These are not attributes that machines have.
This shows that even as businesses and their people adapt to this digital transformation in their workplaces, there is one truth that remains universal – humans will always have a role to play.
There will always be human interaction and input to guide technology, no matter how advanced it is.
People prefer people
Relationships lie at the heart of business, because investment decisions are inherently emotional, not rational.
Many factors go into making decisions, especially if they are difficult decisions such as where to invest your money.
People want to deal with another person to help them with emotional decisions.
A perfect example of this is the lacklustre reaction to robo-advice around the world.
It was expected that robo-advisers would completely take over the financial services sector and usurp the role of financial advisers – but, in fact, we found that the opposite happened.
Robo-advice is now used to assist the adviser and streamline the advice process, rather than replace the adviser.
As the market is more resistant to change, our key focus is to improve client experience and enable more time with clients and less time doing administration.
Behind the scenes however there is always scope to create better efficiencies in terms of processing and transactional time, which remains a strategic focus.
In these difficult markets, having a strong trust relationship is key.
Being able to highlight the challenges and deliver to your promises is what builds the strong bond required to create wealth over time.
We need to better reflect our growing client base.
The pace of investing and implementing technology remains a difficult challenge.
Our client and adviser market does not respond to technological change as quickly as it comes about.
It is therefore a fine balance between rolling out incremental innovations and waiting for some big technological disruption that may change the industry.
In these uncertain times, clients need reassurance and find this in face-to-face interactions.
We still see strong growth in the adviser market for this reason.
We have seen that people will use robo-advice to do research, but to make actual investment decisions post conversations with advisers – humans still rule.
Easy steps like balance enquiries can be digital, and use technology like robo-replies to make the process easier, faster and more seamless.
However, when it comes to questions like which type of fund would be most suitable for a person’s unique circumstances, people prefer to deal with people.
Robo-advisers cannot yet assist people to set financial goals, counsel them during market downturns and solve intricate financial and tax planning needs.
This is why it is important that we implement technology to provide faster service and give straight answers, but leave actual advice to the financial experts who also build relationships with their clients.
We expect that robo-advisers will grow in popularity, but that growth will be based on the relationships and trust between human financial advisers and their clients.
A client first has to trust the brand, before it will trust the robo-advice and assistance that the brand gives them.
So essentially, it always comes back to the human touch.
We still see a key role for advisers going forward for these reasons.
It remains tough going as many have business models that collect revenue based on assets under advisement.
The sluggish economy has fewer clients with disposable income to invest and poor investment performance has seen asset balances decline.
It is certainly a time when advisers truly have to show their worth.
Advisers’ clients will ask difficult questions of them.
It is a time when the strongest will survive and there will possibly be further consolidation as a result.
Ultimately, it i critical for businesses to ensure that technology and its implementation is part of their overall strategy – but the technology that they put in place has to be relevant and provide solutions, not replace that human touch which we have found to be the cornerstone of business success.
Jeanette Marais is deputy chief executive of Momentum Metropolitan Holdings
