WLM Financial plans to streamline technology across its financial planning and chartered accounting business as part of cost reduction and expansion measures, a company director said.
“We’re very much about growth of the business whilst reducing the cost to make it as efficient and as effective as possible,” WLM Financial director Matthew Walker told InvestorDaily.
“The more money we’ve got at the bottom line, the more money we’ve got to reinvest into the business and grow robust bases to get scale.
“[We] try and make things more efficient, more accessible and give a better client service at a reduced cost so we can improve our margins even if the dollar revenues don’t improve.”
Walker said there is more demand in terms of clients examining how they reduce costs.
As part of the move, WLM Financial is looking to move financial planning software provider from Coin to Xplan.
“We just find Coin is getting left behind in terms of functionality of the program and they’re not putting any money into it to make it better so we need to look at that,” Walker said.
The company’s focus on reducing cost and improving client experience will also aid plans to expand through referrals and mergers and acquisitions (M&As).
“We’ve got a lot of those types of programs in place to continue growing the business. It’s just hard work relative to the way it used to flow three or four years ago,” he said.
He said WLM Financial is also looking for further merger or acquisition opportunities following the company’s merger with McGrath Business Advisory in May this year.
“We’d be happy to take on two or three in the next 12 to 18 months,” Walker said.
“The most natural way for a business of our calibre to expand is through referrals, so we’re putting a lot of focus on that. [But we decided that] if you work on organic growth, we should do bolt on acquisitions as well.
“The market is challenging at the moment so you’ve got to do what you can to prove yourself whilst you’ve got 5 seconds to breathe.”
