By Jill Creager, Founder and CEO, iPaladin
INTRODUCTION: A NEW ERA FOR FAMILY OFFICE MANAGEMENT
Family office management is a complex endeavor with time pressures and no tolerance for errors, omissions or missed deadlines. This article delves into the challenges faced by family offices. And it explores how an innovative, unified approach to collaboration among staff and family members, scheduling and following up on activities, and meticulous documentation, all can make a family office more efficient. And at the same time lowering costs and enhancing relationships among staff and family members. All assuring the legacy of the family in these fluid times.
A SOLUTION - DIGITAL OPERATING SYSTEM
A digital operating system designed for family offices can resolve unique challenges and streamline operations. Such a system is comprehensive, seamlessly integrating checklists, scheduling, filing communications, initiation of actions, follow up and archiving it all. The office has access to understandable information in one place. While still new to the family office sector, specialized operating systems have already transformed industries like Healthcare, Aviation, Oil and Gas and Cybersecurity. Adopting such a unified system, many family offices are already benefiting from permissioned collaboration, streamlined trusted activities and meticulous documentation.
Here’s some of the results they’ve achieved.
RESULTS: STREAMLINING TRUSTED ACTIVITES
A unified system can efficiently manage a complex web of family members, entities, staff, advisors, investments, banks, trusts, and foundations, while safeguarding sensitive information. Through centralization, teams ensure everything runs smoothly and on time. Consider the time involved in preparing for a family-wide governance meeting. Now imagine having a unified system with readily available information to facilitate effortless collaboration. Your focus remains zoned in on what truly matters. Family offices can permission collaboration and streamline trusted activities to manage wealth. A unified system reduces errors, enables real-time monitoring of operational risk, improves communication between staff, external advisors and family members, and helps professionals and stakeholders make informed decisions – all in one place.
RESULTS: CAPTURING AND ORGANIZING COMPLEX INFORMATION
Consider how often a single action impacts multiple family members and strategies. For these complex matters, teams need visibility and documentation to understand the relationships between all parties and all assets. A unified solution for a family office easily accommodates one to many transactions, giving family office teams easy access to understand information, comprehend status, progress and next steps. Complex collaborative work with contextual links between decisions and actions is essential to maintain records and ensure effective family office management.
RESULTS: REDUCING OPERATIONAL INEFFICIENCIES
Addressing inefficiencies is vital to maximizing the potential of wealth management strategies as family office grows in complexity. A digital operating system, customized to the specific needs of the family, centralizes all office information and activity in a single platform, eliminating the need to search multiple systems. By automating the work of all roles, manual processes are eliminated and the potential for human error is reduced. Sitting on top of financial systems, all people work together harmoniously. Real-time collaboration on projects and tasks, seamlessly integrated with communication and document archives, fosters a more efficient and cohesive team.
RESULTS: OPT FOR CONTEXT, NOT A BUNCH OF APPS
As family offices confront operational inefficiencies, selecting the right technology becomes pivotal. Right now, there are apps for communications, scheduling, filing. But these apps are not integrated, and family office staff has to cut and paste output from them to run the office. A digital operating system integrates information and actions, making them immediately understandable in one place.
· Disconnect Between Governance and Operational Collaboration. Separating family systems for governance and decision-making from operational collaboration and execution systems in family offices creates a visibility gap, hindering the improvement of accountability, trust and confidence.
· Inadequate Workflow Capabilities: Workflow systems designed for simple one-to-one relationships lack the sophistication to handle intricate family interactions, reducing transparency and raising risk levels.
· Outdated Document Management: Traditional folder-based document management systems designed for one-to-one filing, require duplicate efforts to keep accurate records for all involved parties. Over time, this often leads to inconsistent storage of documentation.
EMBRACE MODERNIZATION: UNLOCK TIME FOR MORE OF WHAT MATTERS
Family offices stand on the edge of modernization. Organizing complex information effectively helps people understand past decisions and uncover new opportunities. Disjointed information stalls excellence with misunderstandings and inaccuracies. Early adopters of specialized operating systems in other industries became leaders through innovation and efficiency. Choosing the right tools to unlock family office performance allows for greater focus on what truly matters.
