Planners are most likely to jump ship if they feel their dealer group poorly supports their client-facing time, according to the latest research from brandmanagement.
Rules of Attraction 2007 assessed the ability of dealer groups to attract and retain quality advisers in the shrinking talent pool.
It surveyed 1350 advisers – a figure robust enough to reflect the whole of the market.
“This piece of research indicates that it’s not just about money,” brandmanagement head of market intelligence Craig Phillips said.
Two in three advisers said support was the main trigger behind them leaving or joining a dealer group.
Product independence was second (63 per cent), third was remuneration (58.8 per cent), then culture (49.2 per cent), brand (31.1 per cent) and leads (26.2 per cent).
“It shows that from an adviser’s perspective four years on from FSR [financial services reform], dealer group support is still key to preventing advisers from sitting knee deep in paperwork,” Phillips said.
“A lot of advisers are small businessmen and want a dealer group to help them with the back office so they can actually talk to clients.”
Four in five planners (82.5 per cent) felt compliance had the greatest negative impact on their business, the research found.
Brandmanagement drilled down into this data and split it into dealer group types.
Large banking and insurance groups, like National Australia Bank and ANZ Financial Planning, feel most bogged down by lack of compliance support. Almost half said it cut into their time with clients.
For large stand-alone practices, such as Financial Wisdom and Securitor, the largest support headache is caused by software inefficiencies (50.9 per cent).
Out of all the dealer group types, small stand-alone practices have the biggest problem with investment administration (27.6 per cent).
Those operating their own licence struggle most with practice management issues (38.5 per cent).
The research compared intelligence on all dealer group contentment levels and compared that with the perception of the broader advisory market.
“Externally, advisers think Macquarie has got the best brand, PIS planners have the most product independence, Macquarie and PIS get the best remuneration, and Macquarie has the best culture at the bank level,” Phillips said.
