Managing Critical Documents in Difficult Economic Times

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The life of the Independent Financial Adviser is difficult enough in these times of tight regulation and tough economic circumstances for many people.  A perfect time, in fact, to make sure that every possible effort is made to reduce costs, enhance productivity and improve client service.  By paying attention to their business processes, IFAs can take significant steps towards ensuring that their business is in the best possible shape when economic conditions are more favourable.

That is why Alan Mills, Managing Director of Barnsley-based Pennine Financial Planning, has chosen this time to implement the Safe4 secure online document delivery and storage service on behalf of his clients.  Using Safe4 will indeed save money and improve client service, but crucially it will also allow Pennine to increase the efficiency of their business processes, making sure that they can handle the increased volumes of activity when the market has fully recovered without increasing their overhead costs.

Alan Mills has a very clear view of the current situation:  “As one of a relatively small number of fully qualified Chartered Financial Planners in Yorkshire, I need to make sure that when business activity does improve again that Pennine is able to expand its level of business without threatening client service or our ability to stay fully compliant with the demanding regulatory environment in which we operate.  Using Safe4 to handle all of our document delivery and storage will enable us to do this at the same time as adding real value to our client relationships.”

Reducing Costs and Improving Efficiency

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One of the great challenges of doing a cost / benefit analysis is quantifying how much is saved, and to what extent efficiency is improved.  When applying this analysis to the implementation of Safe4, there is a range of variables that need to be taken into account to be able to monetise the benefit that will be achieved by the business.  And to complicate matters, each business sector is different, and individual firms with each sector will have a different approach.

Some of the key questions will be:

  • To what extent is the business dependent on the use of paper, and the distribution of hard copy to clients?
  • How many requests for information retrieval are received, and what level of admin effort is needed to deal with them?
  • Can clients receive documents by email?  Is the security of public email systems sufficient to meet regulatory requirements?
  • Are there any issues in meeting compliance requirements?  Is it a big effort to prepare for a compliance audit?
  • How much staff time is spent sending out documents to clients by email or post, and is it necessary to follow up to ensure safe receipt?

Establishing clear models that can be used to identify and quantify cost savings can be a huge boost to a business.  It would be great to get some feedback on any specific approaches that are applicable in the professional practitioner environment.

Dealing with winter weather

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Unexpected bad weather catches us off guard almost every year.  By my reckoning, I’ve been snowed in on 3 separate occasions this year:  in January, February, and again this week.  This can play havoc with running a business, when many staff simply can’t get into the office or place of work.

However, the arrival of Safe4 has helped to change that.  Using the internet, any authorised person can deliver documents to their colleagues and clients, as well as gaining access to all of the organisation’s stored information.  No need to set up complex and expensive Virtual Private Networks, no need to let your clients have access to your own IT systems.  And its completely secure.

Every organisation is affected differently by interruptions caused by the weather.  At least for some companies, Safe4 can help your staff to maintain a high level of productivity when transport networks are struggling, saving time and money and keeping your clients happy.

No more lost documents

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Sounds a bit like “the paperless office” – something to aim for but not to be surprised if it never happens. Of course documents get lost, it’s their nature. The more important they are, the more likely they are to disappear. They are at the mercy of the elements –insurance documents in the fire or washed away in the flood, wills in the thin air that often engulfs them.

Earlier in the year, we produced some  White Papers as a result of discussions we had with various professionals – accountants, IFA’s, lawyers – and which focused on the benefits to the professional practice in reduced document delivery cost, streamlined business process and higher security using a Safe4 like solution. In reviewing those now, around our formal launch, we wonder whether we did not focus enough on the benefits to their clients in having documents automatically put into a secure online file and being available in electronic form with no risk of loss, for whatever reason.

Is “no more lost documents” the real value of placing documents in online secure storage?  Or is the cost and business process saving to the professional intermediary more important than the additional value to the client?

Talking of lost documents, the most famous has to be the cheque lost in the mail. With recent announcements of Royal Mail price increases, entrusting any important document to the mail and paying more for a higher chance of losing it, seems less like an optimal document delivery strategy for the future.