Iress’ Advisely Index finds top performing advisers serve 40% more clients

According to Iress’ Advisely Index Report, the most efficient Australian advice practices serve 40% more clients, creating increased capacity to meet a growing demand for advice and giving them a competitive advantage over their peers.

The Index also found that efficiency is strongly correlated with profitability and frequency of client meetings, with the top performing advice practices ranking 24% more profitable than their peers and conducting an extra client meeting per adviser per week.

Software platform consolidation was a key contributor behind the efficiency gains in advice production, with the Advisely Index participants who use a single software platform quicker at producing every type of advice document measured in the Index survey. Compared to the benchmark, the top performing advice practices were 45% faster at producing basic SOAs, 48% faster at producing complex SOAs, 60% faster at producing strategy papers and 58% faster at producing review documents.

While the Index found that the top performing advice practices are also more efficient at implementing advice, the gains were smaller than advice production, implying that this part of the process is ripe for industry-wide improvement. Here the Index found that the top performing advice practices according to the Index are 30% faster at implementing basic advice and 23% faster at implementing complex advice.

Opportunities to speed up advice execution included honing in on inconsistent use of tools such as digital signatures, which can greatly contribute to expediting parts of the advice implementation process. Advisely Index data suggests that just a third of advice businesses ‘almost always’ use digital signing services with clients, but it’s still not standard practice, and those practices using digital signing are faster, on average, at implementing basic and complex advice than those who use it less frequently.

Iress’ CEO - Wealth APAC, Kelli Willmer, said: “The Advisely Index results demonstrate that Australian advice businesses are drawing on technology and automation to streamline their internal processes and produce advice documents quicker. While this is good news for the industry, there’s still a big opportunity to enhance efficiencies in the implementation of advice strategies, which could have significant impacts on the scalability and profitability of advice businesses.

“At Iress, we’re committed to continuing to support efficiencies in advice production and implementation by reinvesting in our Xplan modelling software and exploring how emerging technologies such as AI can drive increased automation and more streamlined workflows. We’re also focused on increasing the interconnectivity of our software with other technology, such as Docusign, to bring advisers the tools they need to seamlessly implement advice strategies.”

Business Health Principal, Rod Bertino, added: “The trends in the Advisely Index data clearly show that advisers who can harness technology to drive consistent and efficient processes for advice production and implementation are more equipped to service a growing client landscape and likely to be more profitable than their peers.

“Advisers are operating in an increasingly competitive market, making efficiency an imperative for any advice business looking to expand its client base and stay competitive in 2025 and beyond.”

The Advisely Index was developed by Advisely and Business Health and launched in November 2023. It was designed as both an industry benchmarking tool and a source of customised feedback for users about the efficiency of their advice process across the key advice delivery metrics of advice production, execution, servicing and client engagement. The Advisely Index is a free five-minute benchmarking tool that can be accessed for free by any member of the advice community here.