Pursuing the "wow"!

Just one of the many quotes received as we followed up our paper from last year (Evolving for advantage – in pursuit of the “wow!”), interviewing, probing, provoking the Asset Service Providers (“ASPs”) in how they reacted to the views, opinions and conclusions so well-articulated by the Asset Managers in that paper. The general consensus amongst readers of that paper was very much a “wake up call” to the ASPs, something for the sector to easily understand even if hard to accept. 

Welcome once again therefore to the next in our series of “conversations with industry leaders”. As a reminder, these are not surveys, but face to face interviews, totally anonymous and conducted in a spirit of trust, transparency and honesty. Interviews were held at CEO level, covering the diversity of the ASP sector including large banks, specialist administrators, third party ManCos, managed services providers, and trust companies.

We had perhaps anticipated a broad view reflecting a defensive tone against the constructive criticism reflected in the previous paper; an effort to explain themselves, to correct misunderstandings, to shield behind a wall of regulatory complexity. We were wrong; we met a collective voice of maturity, acknowledging the opportunity to listen, to reflect, to realise and to refocus efforts around areas identified by the Asset Managers to aid the ASP sector into becoming more of a partner, to evolve in pursuit of mutual benefit, and to seek and find the “Wow!”

We noted in our previous paper the absence of radical strategic ideas from the Asset Managers and their asks of the ASPs, and commented this reflected a plea for ASPs to refocus on the basics of client delight, for quality rather than just a relentless push for cost reduction, for intelligent not mechanical service. It was indeed a “call for action”, consistent across participating Asset Managers. 

The ASPs have heard that “call for action”, and we have been both delighted and encouraged by the embracing of the core messages, and a real hunger to evidence a response. Sometimes that response just needed better articulating as it was indeed in train; others have been provoked into a realisation of what is required to differentiate (evolving for advantage) and stand out (delivering the “wow!”)

We have organised the synthesis of these conversations into five broad sections to facilitate ease of capturing key findings.