We design and deliver training and specialist courses in financial planning and financial strategy to our clients, including private bankers, throughout the Asia region.
Apart from our specialist financial planning and financial strategy courses, we also train financial advisors to shift from a product sale-based (transactional) relationship to a financial-strategy, advice-based relationship with clients to place them in a position from which they are able to influence the distribution of a client's financial resources. This is a valuable and sustainable relationship that ultimately leads to an increase in business written per client. To date, our consultants, Adj Prof Wes and Christina Tin have trained more than 1000 private bankers around the world.
Another one of our consultants, Prof. Francis Warren McKeown is constantly working with industry bodies to develop short courses for industry practitioners. He has provided countless consulting and training cources in various countries including Australia and Singapore.
Consulting
We provide consulting advice to a wide range of businesses. One of our principal consultant, Adj. Prof. McMaster frequently presents as a keynote speaker at conferences and conventions on issues affecting financial planning and business management. We also have specialist knowledge of the financial services industry. Our advice covers the following areas:
* Strategic positioning of businesses
* Corporate Governance
* Business planning and growth strategies
* Systems and processes
* Acquisitions and mergers
* Distribution of financial advice
* Financial planning
* Compliance
* Expert witness for law firms in matters relating to financial planning
Our clients include:
* Financial institutions
* Financial planning businesses
* Accounting businesses
* Professional associations in Australia and overseas
Business Strategy
Services that we typically deliver to our client groups:
* Strategy, design and establishment of new distribution businesses.
* Strategic review of existing distribution businesses, focusing on supervision, reduction of compliance liability and consistency of advice.
* Provide systems to manage and measure the activity of a national network of financial planning businesses.
* Advice on support services for distribution businesses.
* Review, training and support on practice management within financial planning businesses.
* Presentations that generally focus on business issues at conferences and professional development sessions.
Re-Positioning Businesses
We undertake a review of businesses covering;
- Organisational structure
- Client base
- Pricing
- Service levels
- Processes
- Systems
- People
- Financials
- Marketing
- Communication
We create a model of the business and project it over the next five years. The model can be used to look at the effect of different strategies such as pricing, acquisition, or market change on your business. Future effects on cash flow, profitability, capital value and staffing needs can also be projected. In this way, informed decisions about your business can be made.
Using workflow software, we can define and automate the each processes used in your business. This increases efficiency, reduces risk of error, reduces compliance liability and provides a consistent client experience. Here are some typical processes that you can document:
- Client acquisition
- Initial Advice
- Plan preparation
- Implementation
- Portfolio review
- Client review
- Administrative processes
One of the benefits of automating your workflow processes is that you can measure the time that it takes to complete each task and the number of times that each task is completed by each employee. This automatically produces Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reports. Another by-product of your model and automating workflow processes is that management reports that measure key elements of your business versus targets can be produced.
Specialist Financial Planners
We act at the personal 'Chief Financial Officer' for family groups, advising wealthy families on financial strategies by designing and reviewing financial strategies with them regularly. In designing financial strategy, we include the following issues:
- Cross jurisdictional tax planning
- Cross jurisdictional estate planning
- Investment strategy
- Risk management
- Debt management
- Cash flow management
Our clients typically have income and assets spread across the globe, and benefit from retaining us as external professionals who look objectively at their use of assets, liabilities, income and cash flow.