The virtuous circle of client behavior data
Human behavior is general, universal, and unaffected by innate biases that devalue the feedback we give each other, like forgetting things and avoiding difficult conversations.
Systems record many of our actions, causing the global volume of analyzed data to grow exponentially. As a result, information about client behavior is now available digitally without disrupting them.
The asset managers who command this aspect of their data can exploit a virtuous circle:
- Faster and more accurate identification of changes in client behavior.
- Better decisions and more effective response plans – timely, evidence-based, and tailored to the situation.
- Greater capacity to learn about their market and the behaviors they stimulate in clients.
For asset managers, this situation creates winners and losers
“The problem isn’t information overload – it’s filter failure.”
Clay Shirky
For some firms, driving decisions by client behavior can be transformative while, for others, it can be a matter of survival. For example, early warning of changes in critical client behaviors (like buying, staying, and buying more) pays for itself by enabling asset managers to seize growth opportunities, limit client retention issues, and minimize their costs of sale.
But operating at this faster tempo brings challenges that are not easy to overcome on your own:
- What should you measure, and how will you interpret your results?
- How should you organize your data to avoid focusing on the wrong metrics?
- How can you do this in an affordable way that demonstrates a return on investment?
Announcing the Accomplish behavioral analytics platform
To solve these problems, we are excited to have launched the Accomplish behavioral analytics platform.
With it, asset managers in the Client Behavior Benchmark can see, in one place online, their end-to-end effect relative to peers on whether clients across different segments and markets are buying, staying, or buying more.
At the click of a button, they can now identify their highest priorities, greatest strategic opportunities, and biggest challenges.
And, having done so, they can drill down into specific metrics, interact with the data, and leverage independent expert interpretations.
To provide the most cost-effective business intelligence on the market, we have configured Power BI to bring the benchmark to life. It is Microsoft’s market-leading (and very affordable) data analytics and visualization software.
The most cost-effective BI on the market
“The Accomplish platform is invaluable for identifying and drilling down into the highest priority metrics.”
An early adopter at a global asset management firm.
The great thing about the benchmark is the Helix© taxonomy of client behavior that supports it. As well as the many expected functions of a taxonomy, it differentiates behaviors by whether they are leading or lagging indicators – we call them input and output client behaviors. For example, if you were preparing an executive presentation on commercial performance, you can now filter just the data relating to the strategic, dollarizable, and lagging behavioral indicators like sales conversion rates (buying), products per client (buying more), and client tenure (staying).
Alternatively, you might need to explore a particular behavior, e.g. client tenure, in which case you could view it in combination with leading indicators like investment performance, thought leadership consumption, and event attendance.
If you were busy, you could prioritise just the automatically-flagged items where, on average, the other firms in the benchmark are outperforming you.
There are many reasons why Power BI leads Gartner’s® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and BI Platforms (2022), but the inherent feature we at Accomplish value highly is its interoperability with other apps. Exporting data, images, analytics pages, and entire reports into all the main file types is ridiculously easy, making your analysis of client behavior accessible to your colleagues.
Lastly, on cost-effectiveness, you could use the Accomplish behavioral analytics platform to different degrees, depending on where your firm is on business intelligence. You could rely on it as an end-to-end BI app, as a complement to your existing BI system, or as a source of exportable benchmark data that you incorporate into your own databases.
BI that more than pays for itself
2022 has been a year of phenomenal growth for Accomplish, with an increasing number of case studies across multiple asset managers evidencing how insights from the Client Behavior Benchmark are paying for themselves.
As we look to the future, we are excited by the possibilities the Accomplish behavioral analytics platform will bring to asset managers and we are already drawing up plans, to add new and enhanced features.
If you would like to learn more about the platform or behavioral benchmarking in general, book a 20-minute demo with us. We look forward to meeting you.