Market forces are making planning as important as investment management, and firms across the industry are rethinking their services. Market forces—like shifting demographics, consumer demand and regulation — are making financial planning an imperative for firms across the wealth management industry. As a result, financial planning technology is quickly becoming the front line in the battle for client assets.

InvestmentNews 2018

Firms are shifting from an investment-led mindset to a planning-led mindset, integrating the financial planning conversation into the wealth management process,” said Isabella Fonseca, senior analyst at Aite Group. In her report, nearly three-quarters of 344 financial advisers surveyed said financial planning was equal to or more important than investment management.

Aite Group 2018

But perhaps the greatest blocking point to financial planning software innovation is that few new providers have really taken an innovative and differentiated vision of what financial planning software can and should be…and instead continue to simply copy today’s incumbents, adding only incremental new features while trying to forever be ‘simpler and easier’ – without even any clear understanding of what, exactly, is OK to eliminate in the process. Nonetheless, tremendous opportunity remains for real innovation in financial planning software.

Michael Kitces 2017