What’s changed since you’ve been gone?
We create our shared reality together. When situations change, we determine norms and patterns of interaction not by established writ but by trial and error – it’s an evolutionary process – if it works for most, it becomes the norm. The idea that we are eventually ‘going back’ to some existing reality of engagement in asset/wealth management is a farce. Get over it. Now. It serves you, your company and your clients to be sensible.
Like yours, many of my conversations with industry colleagues (primarily manager research analysts and distribution leaders at asset managers) are focused on the current and potential future states of engagement between asset managers and analysts. How is due diligence evolving? What is the role of salespeople? Is digital enough? If you buy into the idea that our shared reality is co-created, then you should take comfort and be empowered knowing that the decisions made today are building the future of engagement. Its 20 years of change compressed into 2020. We need to get this one right.
Two opposing camps have emerged in the debate about the future of engagement. One camp is focused on all things ‘digital’ and thinks that handshakes and in person meeting are remnants of the past – all can be done digitally. The other camp takes the opposite view, and argues that, because this is a human business, all the really human stuff (touching hands, breaking bread, etc.) is crucial and irreplaceable. In their view, all of this emerging Covid-era digital stuff is a temporary departure from the established and desirable norm.
What is most likely and most desirable is that the synthesis of these two perspectives will be the shape of things to come. Digital offers huge efficiencies and ways to improve client experience while meeting in person is key for establishing and maintaining trust. To get to the right eventual mix, it is important that industry actors are making active strategic decisions about creating a new and certainly improved approach. I am of the mind that the best strategy that can be deployed today is one that makes no fixed assumptions about the future. It takes into account the realities of today and makes hard decisions based on improvements that will be retained regardless of the environment.
We humans are pragmatic; we do what works and will stick with an approach until something big enough pushes us in another direction. We are incentivized to reach certain goals and will seek to find the most direct means of getting there. Yes, we will travel again. Yes, there will be meetings between asset managers and due diligence analysts. When these meetings do happen again, they will be more important than ever. But managers will need to recognize what has happened while they’ve been away – analysts have been using the emerging tools and increased information flows they have to good effect. They are more organized and well informed. They will expect more from their managers.
Roland J. Meerdter
Co-Founder
- Operations
