CFS 10x webinars

Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar on tech stack transformations. My name is David Pritchard. I'm the executive director of the wrap business at CFS, and I'm proud to say that it's my team that brought CFS to market. I'm hosting today because I've got a tech background. I'm passionate about the role that platforms can play, partnering with tech to help you to transform and grow your business. 

 

Just before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation on whose land we broadcast from today. And wherever you are in Australia. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Okay, so this is the third webinar in the CFS 10x series. 

 

We recently launched 10x and it's all about joining education and capability with your objectives. You can expect best in class subject matter experts and thought leadership delivered in forums like this in roundtables, whitepapers, research, and industry events. Whatever your goals are, ten X is designed to empower you to execute your strategy. Last month, we focused on how to prepare your business for a successful purchase, sale or merger. 

 

If you missed that webinar, you can catch it on CFS.com.au/10x. But today we're talking about tech stack transformations. Why it's important to get your tech stack right. How you go about assessing, selecting and changing tech. And we'll explore a couple of case studies with very successful advice businesses who are at the different stages of the transformation journey. 

 

So to introduce my guests, on my right, we've got Pete Worn, Pete, you're the founder and joint managing director of Finura Group. so you advise Australian and UK businesses, on their technical knowledge, strategy and their execution, and you've got a mission to improve the quality and affordability of financial advice through improved technology delivery. Thanks for joining us today, Pete. 

 

and Danni Le Grande. Danni's a partner and head of consulting at Finura Group. And, Danni, you leveraged your passion for technology to enhance the operational efficiency of advice businesses over 25 years in the industry and the last 13 years specifically working with technology in the financial services sector. Welcome. and we've also got, Steve Sloan on the right there. 

 

I'll introduce the slide a bit later. Okay. But to get started, we'll compete in Danni. You've got lots of experience in the tech sector. So let's get started with you. What led you to co-found, and run for Nera? well, Danni told me, too. That's right. no. So, this is our second chapter as a team. 

 

So, a lot of the same. We work together in a previous company that focused on just explained development. But what we found, over time, is as the markets change and we've seen so many businesses go and become self license and become, graduate from being small practices to be quite complex firms in their own right, their technology needs and complexities and problems had grown beyond just purely advice tech. 

 

So we saw a real gap in the market to provide a service where we could help, you know, firms make better tech decisions, who perhaps don't have necessarily need has resourced to execute well but wanted someone to help them untangle that really complex world of advice tech, which is, quite frankly, exploded in the last ten years. 

 

Yeah. Yeah, sure. And look, there's lots of tech out there and adoption rates seem to have picked up as well across the industry, and seen quite fast compared to the more traditional product adoption rates. Why is that? I think I probably the, this recent example. So, it's not specific, just financial services, but the adoption of AI. 

 

some data from Gartner read the other know, I was saying that the AI adoption rate is being four times faster than any other technology we've ever seen in history. I think it's come from two factors. Number one, we've had AI. I guess shoved in at right by a lot of large tech companies who are really pushing AI. 

 

And anyone that's logged into any of those mainstream technologies in the last few months would know that. And I think I think the second component is that, we've seen a lot of bottom up demand for AI solutions, because it's really the first time that II has been, you know, driven top down by companies and also bottom up by users finding their own bits of tech. 

 

So it's been a really interesting example. However, I still think we're still grappling with just what do we use AI for sure. Look, that explosion of tech kind of makes me think of the importance of due diligence. Can you talk to us about that? Yeah. So without question, the number one problem we tend to find with firms that have come to us who have maybe made a few technology missteps, has been lack of due diligence. 

 

and it's been surprising because firms are so good at, running compliance committees and, you know, investment committees on selecting individuals and their clients, but don't apply the same rigor necessarily to technology decisions. we found a lot of technology decisions have been driven and quite emotional, actually, by things that they've found haven't worked and they've made maybe not database decisions. 

 

And so, are often tracks back to that. And as, as you would understand, as a business grows, the magnitude of this technology's reasons can become more so if you make a bad one. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Look, I mean, you've seen no doubt, you know, bad tech thrown at the wrong problem as well. Yeah. So can you just talk to us about, you know, what, what problems these tech trying to solve? 

 

Yeah. Well, I think, a lot of the problems that we find firms are dealing with are a result of legacy, actually. Think about it. So most advice businesses have been around for a long time in different forms. They've had succession, they've had em. And I, but you can track a history with most advice businesses. And what you tend to find is that the tech doesn't always keep up with the growth of the business. 

 

And as a business evolves, you have people coming in and out of it. You've got different, you've got acquisitions happening. And we often find that we just end up with a collection of tech necessarily, but without a concerted strategy. And those main problems that we tend to hear about, lack of integrations between key systems that a business is relying on for data quality is another one. 

 

And then the third one outside, which is not as well understood, is just lack of training and adoption that a lot of people in the business just don't know how to use the tools they've already got. So they tend to be the three things that Finura really focuses on before we sort of start thinking about adding any new tech to a business. 

 

Yeah. Okay. Cool. And we'll look we'll come back and unpack those three areas as well through the webinar. look, I know that lots of businesses could really benefit from a tech review, or an update. and you spoke about some of the triggers, for that. Can you just talk to those triggers for us? for people out there working in an advice business or business owners? 

 

You know, at what point in their journey should they consider undertaking a tech review? look, we actually think tech review should happen all the time. That's for the first thing outside should be part of the cadence of your business. But there are often triggers that would cause a business to reach out to a company like Finura. 

 

One trigger may be that they've realized that they've made a mistake with technology, and they want to work out what do we do? Do we have a sunk cost here or do we unwind that decision? And how would we do that? they probably the calls. We don't necessarily always like getting because you want to sort of be a bit more proactive and solve it before the decision. 

 

But that's number one. the other, we're finding the other big trigger for us is we're finding a lot of firms coming to us who are on that journey of becoming self licensed. So they leading a large institutional loss and say where the techs been curated and handed to them. and now there's sort of a bit of a they're in the supermarket of technology. 

 

If I could go, wow, we've got so much choice, what do we do? So that's a really important trigger. And the third one would be usually around the time of M&A. you're looking to it. It probably ties in nicely with some of the things you spoke about the last webinar where you know, you're buying another business. It's going to have really different technology, different people. 

 

What is the target operating state we need to get to from a tech perspective. And what's the fastest way to get there as well so that they'd be trading triggers? Yeah. Okay. and you mentioned cost. let's explore that a little bit further. You know, how much does cost really factor into the decision making process around triggering a review, but also just the tech choices that you make? 

 

Yeah, I think cost is frankly often too high on the criteria for decision making. So a lot of, core technology decisions we found have actually been result of cost driven priorities. So just trying to save money on tech. so that's probably one thing I just would, would add at the start. But from a we would always say, well, what's the value? 

 

We're getting dramatic. You know, what is the return on investment in most businesses? What you find, don't even categorize that tax expense at a detail level. They'll have one line item on zero for some software and subscriptions, and not a lot of detail underneath that tracking utilization. And that's a lot of the work that Danni and the team do. 

 

what I would say, though, the data, investment trends in some data, couple of years ago surveyed firms and most firms are willing to spend more on technology, but they're quite gun shy where to spend it? They're not sure where to put that money necessarily. And so there is a bit more of a mentality creeping in of, hey, we know we need to invest in tech, but we've had our fingers burn the past. 

 

We don't think we're getting value from their current solutions. Where do we spend that money in the future? So that's the question. Ultimately, we're trying to help firms answer. Yeah okay. Yeah. So you're still seeing a lot of ROI opportunity for that tech investment. Great. and tell us some of the benefits that you've seen out there in advice businesses undertaking these kind of reviews. 

 

Yeah. I think I mean, the thing for us is this is the first for many of us, there's real inflation, inflationary business environment. We've been in business owners. I'm a business owner. the state is too, and I'm sure I can talk this way. I would expect most of your staff are expecting pay increases in 1st July. 

 

It's not just a nice to have now. People are expecting high salaries. And so business pressure margins are under pressure. And so inevitably there comes a point where we say we can't just keep throwing people at our process problems. And in fact, if we want to scale and maintain high margins, we need more tech, we need better service, more clients for the people that we've got. 

 

So that is probably driving, that return on investment conversation we have with most firms. So when we do our tech roadmaps, we are really laser focused on how do we increase the capacity of this firm to serve more clients with existing resources, and what's the right way for tech to enable that? And I think if we can nail that key question, that's probably a really good Northstar for a business to be making. 

 

On making tech decisions moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. Great. And so you kind of justify undertaking this review from a cost ROI perspective. but there's lots of upside benefits as well, I think, around risk or value prop for the advice business and so on. Can you just talk to us about that? Yeah. I think, you know, when we start these tech reviews, it's never just about the tech. 

 

There's often we always factor in, the people, the processes in the business. But really important, the client value proposition. We have clients want to be served in the future. Now, a lot of businesses are trying to think about this so often. we'll ask a very simple question like, how do your clients want to engage with you digitally in the future? 

 

And then that will cause a whole bunch of other questions to fall out of it. and maybe some of them out of our wheelhouse. But I think there's a great question for them to grapple with. so the benefit of these prices, it'll often, raise issues which are not tech related, but I think are critical for the business to answer before we even think about putting a new tech solution in place. 

 

That's the first thing. The other thing we tend to find is often it'll make a business think differently about how they organize and manage staff, so how they organize teams and what kind of roles do that in the future, what kind of people that they need in the business? running the systems and technology. So, like any externally run process with an independent set of eyes, it'll just often ask those questions that maybe haven't been asked in a long time. 

 

and that's fascinating for us to sit there and to wonder. Yeah. Yeah, great. Really valuable. I know you love this question, Pete. The million dollar question. So what's the answer? What's the silver bullet here? Is there is there a kind of single software solution that we all need to be kind of moving towards, to solve all of these issues and deliver all these fantastic benefits? 

 

Oh, it's I, I dive absolutely. No. So, Yeah, there is a I mean, we do we do look for the holy grail, the unicorn of tech. and Danni, quite rightly in all her reports, always had that the first thing to say to a client is, hi, the unicorn doesn't exist. That's the first thing. as an industry, we have literally found millions of ways of doing the exact same processes. 

 

That makes building tech really, really hard for software companies. so what we're really big on is firstly, simplifying tech. So we actually a menu that reviews will strip out more things than we had from a technology perspective. So that simplicity is really, really important. we maximize the value of the tech you're already using because quite often we find businesses don't even understand the full capability of what they've already got. 

 

Sure. But what we'll do is we'll make sure that we're really deliberate and clear on what piece of tech does what job in the business. And it's got a it's got a dedicated purpose for being there in the first place. So out of that simplicity, you get a lot of really clear answers on that. we obviously, you know, put some pretty strict protocols in clients around due diligence and how they select technology and not throwing tech at a problem necessarily. 

 

when if there's a probably a different solution. But the, the holy grail ultimately is the right combination of processes people and capability and the technology that supports it. And no two businesses are going to be the same. Yeah. Go ahead and deploy. Yeah, right. So no one size fits all. Unfortunately people all right. So and talk to me a little bit about the role that you think platforms can play in helping with this. 

 

I mean, I think over the last few years we've seen some of the smaller tech players in the country fail. and that has a real flow on impact to the businesses that use that tech. and I think that platforms have got a really positive role to play here, but I'm interested in your views on that. that's critical. 

 

so the market for advice software in Australia is about $200 million, which is not a lot relative to other industries. And in fact, that's why you see platforms being much bigger businesses than advice tech companies, generally speaking. So, we make no secret about it. We think platforms with the balance sheet and capability that, they bring to the market, they're just such a critical part of infrastructure for what we do, and usually have the capability and balance sheet to invest in tech themselves. 

 

14:46:09 - 15:14:06 

The key question, I think, for platform providers to understand is that, advisors use multiple platforms so that you have to realize that, you know, you've got to play nicely with all the tech the devices use. and it's also unrealistic to expect that an advisor would choose, just one platform and one bit of advice tech. So on the platforms is always be, recognize the value, provide the ecosystem, and provide a frictionless, environment so advisors can pick and choose the tech that works for them. 

 

15:14:06 - 15:34:01 

And we can do our job as consultants, and don't stand in the way, really of advice firms innovating. So, and I place a sign off. I'm seeing a lot more of that from platforms now, which is great. Yeah, sure. Fantastic. Okay, Danni, welcome. Thank you. Now, you've had a distinguished career. You've also run advice businesses. You've worked abroad. 

 

15:34:15 - 16:01:03 

What attracted you to Finura? Well, I think navigating the technology landscape is, is really tricky. And to all the pain points, there's a lot of technology out there. It's, really complex to get your head around how it's going to best fit into your business. So, Viner has got a really good opportunity to, I feel, make a difference in that area and to really help advise businesses sort of understand how to use technology properly and also to help manage that change. 

 

16:01:03 - 16:16:16 

Because as we know, that's probably one of the most trickiest parts of, of technology. And getting new technology into business is managing that change as well. Working in the trenches as well, I can sort of relate to the client service teams in the power planning teams and the advice teams as well. So I've felt the pain in the past. 

 

16:16:24 - 16:36:14 

so you can really empathize with, with what happens there in the back offices too. Yeah. Fantastic. and look, we will hear from a couple of really successful advice businesses today that have been through a tech review and are at different stages of that transformation journey. but I think everyone out there really wants to understand what does this review process actually look like? 

 

16:36:17 - 16:57:16 

Can you just talk us through that process step by step? Yeah, sure. So what we really need to do is to get a really good understanding of how advice is being used across what we call them jobs to be done. But really the advice journey in an advice business, it's really important for us to talk to the business owners, the client service teams, the back office, the middle office just so that we can get a really great understanding of what's happening. 

 

16:57:22 - 17:15:00 

Because quite often when you talk to the business owners and the advisors, you'll get quite a different experience for technology to the teams in the back office. Once we've got that information, we run analysis over that. and what we really want to do is make sure that we're choosing technology that's going to align, with the resources in the business. 

 

17:15:09 - 17:36:07 

and sometimes that does often mean taking the positive resistance, potentially looking at what we've got already in an advice business. We might not have been using it very well, not been trained very well in it. So we dissect all of that information. And then what we come up with is a, is a package of recommendations for that advice business that is going to help them make their business objectives into the future. 

 

17:36:09 - 17:54:04 

All right. Fantastic. And Pete alluded to this. And it's just one area I want to drill into a little bit. It's the people aspect of these transformations. so can you just talk to us a little bit about, you know, how you understand the people in the business and how they're using tech, and then how do you go about changing that? 

 

17:54:06 - 18:14:02 

Yeah, it's really it's really tricky. And I think, the best approach that we can have is, is a baby steps approach and a phased in approach. So we want to meet the overall business objectives. But it's really important that we really drip feed the change into a business. We don't want to just roll technology out, in one fell swoop and give everybody that logins and off they go. 

 

18:14:03 - 18:37:16 

We really want to methodically think about how, technology is going to be used across those jobs to be done and with those teams in those in those businesses. Okay. And inevitably in these businesses, you'll find, tech that they love. That's probably not the tech you'd recommend. and the reverse of that as well. Right. New tech that you might want to bring in when they're kind of wedded to something else. 

 

18:37:18 - 18:56:07 

How do you work through that kind of an issue? Well, we probably, speak to that a little bit with, in real life situations. but I think it's just sort of explaining and helping, advice businesses understand what the technology can actually do for them and, you know, getting to page points. technology is sort of designed to do what it's supposed to do. 

 

18:56:07 - 19:13:18 

And sometimes we have to think about, not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. And is there anything that we can do to sort of come to the party when it comes to, technology? But certainly we need to take into account those biases, potentially, they might be bad experiences with, technology in the past, and that's going to cause the resistance to change. 

 

19:13:18 - 19:32:17 

So we want to make sure we really kind of unpack that with the advice business as well, because we want them to be, you know, ready and willing to make that change. Yep. Got it. Okay. And last question around cyber or just risk in general. But cyber is obviously a hot topic at the moment. How do you factor that into this review process. 

 

19:32:19 - 19:48:19 

Yeah. Look, it's a it's a it's a big deal. And it's obviously becoming more of a concern as we move forward, with advisors and these, these tech roadmaps. So, what we really look at is how the, advice businesses are engaging with their clients. And quite often we do we do research the market on this. 

 

19:49:03 - 20:09:04 

at the moment we've got 80%. We know that 80% of advisers are still emailing, advice documents to their clients. So, we really make sure that we address things like using client portals, using password protection, that sort of thing. It just to get to that, I think, two thirds of all cyber issues are actually caused by human error and behavioural things within a business. 

 

20:09:06 - 20:40:10 

So we will always recommend, a cyber security training solution that businesses need to use. And a lot of times where you do that and AI training as part of the AI for sale. but it's actually training. You'll just have to not open phishing emails. you know, run those sort of takes all the time. So, but obviously that and from our perspective, you know, we, we feel that financial advisors of the custodians of some of those sensitive data a person can have, particularly for doing insurance and those sort of things. 

 

20:40:22 - 20:57:22 

so really we look at trying to run scenarios of fans of, well, if we have to get off email with our clients, how do we do that? You know, and, and just run those sort of scenarios of the business to really sort of test that. because, I would say most businesses have had an incident where they've sent a document to the wrong client because of an order. 

 

20:57:22 - 21:14:23 

I feel in an email like it is that literally that simple as that. Those things happen. So, we can talk a lot of big cyber AI runs worried about hacking and all these things that happen. But actually so much of it's behavioural and training and so what Denning the team really trying to do is put systems and processes in the place that mitigate that risk in the first place. 

 

21:15:03 - 21:32:16 

Yeah, okay. Okay. Before we get into a couple of case studies, I just want to kind of get real for a minute. So can you just talk to me about these reviews? You know how hard I like to do. How long do they take? How much do they cost? Because I think that's probably top of mind for business owners out there. 

 

21:32:19 - 21:51:12 

Yeah, yeah. So, the first thing is we think it's got to be, one of the top 2 or 3 priorities for a business at that time when they do it. So we'll always side it with business. Look, if you've got a lot of other things going on and you can't commit to this, it's probably not starting, you know, because there's nothing worse for us from someone being half committed. 

 

21:52:05 - 22:15:01 

from a, from a cost perspective. Our costs will range from about 10 to $20,000, depending on the size and the complexity. The firm the moving needle for Australia's, the number of employees you've got because, designing the team a really thorough. So I'll try to talk to as many people in business as possible. Right. a real value out of that, though, is we get all this rich data which business owners can take about different things. 

 

22:15:01 - 22:30:01 

I discover through the process that you need to know what's happening around that. So I think there's value in the thoroughness, as well. But the other important part is we don't let our clients go at that point. We actually help them execute and implement. So, a lot of our clients will have an ongoing relationship with us. 

 

22:30:01 - 22:52:08 

We become almost like a CTO extension of that business to help them project, manage and execute, work with software vendors, which is always a big challenge for businesses as well, and be an extension of the firm. So as I've said, he's quite involved. But, if you are serious about the tech, if you've got, you know, trying to do things in the future like Grow arm and I, it's a really important piece of the puzzle to get right. 

 

22:52:10 - 23:11:18 

And all we'd ever ask with our clients is they dedicate the due, you know, the due effort to it and side. This is this is our key initiative this quarter. And we're going now this, rather than trying to do too many things at the same time. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. All right. And introducing Steve and on my right, Steve, welcome. 

 

23:11:23 - 23:31:24 

Steve's the founder and managing director of the Link Wealth Group. you founded Link in 2012. got an accounting background. tell us a bit about links. So, yeah, so, so clearly for families back in 2012 and myself, my business partner Josh, like we have built it up to about 500 families on that time. it's a multifaceted business. 

 

23:31:24 - 23:52:06 

I've got a wealth business roles got Lavada solutions, which is an outsourcing admin service to other finance practices here in Australia. We've got a liberal finance and accounting as well. So it's a it's a multifaceted business and hence why technology so important. Yeah Luke when I first met you, Steve, I think it struck me that I think your business is quite digitally savvy. 

 

23:52:08 - 24:17:12 

So can you just maybe talk a little bit about the types of clients that you service and, and, and how, they interact with your business digitally? Yeah. Look, we probably in the, 30s to 40s, 50s accumulations space. And so they're generally tech driven anyway, so it's important for us to be leading on that, that edge, as we go, we do we transform the business a lot in the last couple of years to a lot of online systems and processes. 

 

24:17:12 - 24:40:23 

So that was important to get right as well. But over that journey, we clearly start to unpack some issues that we could see that the disengagement really helped us with. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. And look your more towards the beginning of this, transformation journey. But at the end of the review phase, what triggered you to work with furniture and move into this review? 

 

24:41:03 - 25:02:16 

Yeah, I think, a look, we saw some bottlenecks, especially in client, data capture that was pretty evident. But more importantly, we also because of all the technology we had and there was a range of different ways you could use all the privileges that before that, the staff didn't quite know some of the intricacies of the, the technology that we did have. 

 

25:02:17 - 25:26:10 

So it was just it unpacked and uncovered the fact that we did have inefficiencies across the board because the staff are using it in different ways that was in sync with each other. So straight away we started to uncover, we were the team in Danni in particular, just real efficiencies popped out straight away because we, we had great tech, but we weren't really implementing as good as we could. 

 

25:26:12 - 25:47:15 

And then on top of that, there was some other technology that came to the table that we could really utilize to get that data capture. Right? Right. Got it. Okay. And look, there's over 60 staff in your business. so, I guess I'm interested in, you know, did you feel that you had the in-house capability to undertake a review like this yourself? 

 

25:48:13 - 26:12:02 

or why did you partner with a specialist, firm, like from Europe? Yeah. I think the major benefit here is the, the, the expertise I bring to the table. clearly, this is an ongoing, issue. Whether it's cyber security, the best tech, how to process advice effectively and efficiently. And that's our biggest issue. But we need that that expertise for these guys. 

 

26:12:02 - 26:33:14 

And that's what they brought to the table. we reality's all kind of style on top of those issues that and it's an ongoing every days a new sort of something is popping out. So, yeah, I was super impressed by just the efficiencies I brought to the table, the ideas I brought to the table, and it's really added to our business and the output for the advisors and it's got it all on the same journey. 

 

26:33:14 - 27:16 

Now, whether it's my link wealth group, all of your solutions and that take place coming together, it's really important. Yeah. I can't emphasize enough. I mean, you saw the slide, how much tech is out there. It's a really specialist area. So even when you've got a large firm and you might have somebody in-house, that's your ops and tech guy, I think it's really valuable to get, a third party that independence, that expertise into the business, to undertake a review like this. 

 

27:01:12 - 27:24:24 

so, Danni, Steve came to you with some pretty big objectives. so can you just tell us about the early stages of the review that you undertook and what kinds of issues that that you uncovered? Yeah. So, we did went through a discovery session. So we, thanks to the, the team at link, gave us access to quite a lot of that, team members. 

 

27:24:24 - 27:45:24 

So we were able to get a really good overview of how technology was being used across, the business, which was really great to see. we have a slide coming up shortly that, just shows the, the technology that was that's being used in Link Wealth. And really it helps us to helps the business to sort of say the visual of all the technology that's actually being used. 

 

27:45:24 - 28:04:10 

You might not sort of always be aware of all the different pieces of tech that's being used across the business. and then what we could see there with the pain points, with the particularly when it came to advice production and the business had it's obviously got really, aspirational growth plans. And we want the advisors to be able to see more clients. 

 

28:04:10 - 28:21:20 

But there was a block in that advice production area. So, we identified that and we also identified some issues with the client service team, and the way that the processes were being run. So we had sort of Excel spreadsheets still being worked on. sometimes some of the Microsoft suite still being worked on for workflow and that sort of thing. 

 

28:21:20 - 28:45:06 

So that was leading to inconsistent data models as well, which is making it difficult to report back up to the owners of the business and get those succinct insights into what was going on. so really we just sort of pulled out those key areas. and then from a client engagement perspective as well, the guys wanted to really, uplift the way that they're engaging their clients and also look to enhance the cyber security overlay as well. 

 

28:45:06 - 29:06:01 

So we, we addressed the client engagement piece to okay. And I might just drill into a couple of those areas a little bit, if that's okay. so you mentioned tech being used inconsistently between teams. and then you mentioned, the fragmentation of data as well across the business and the need to, to kind of bring that together. 

 

29:06:10 - 29:26:12 

can you unpack that a little bit more for us? Yeah. So, probably the advice production area, just given we do have a lot of technology being used in that advice production space. if you look to that slide, you'll say that a lot of those, a lot of the research tools, for example, a sort of standalone, are not sitting in an integrated type of a system. 

 

29:26:12 - 29:43:23 

So, we sort of brought that to the attention of the guys. That was really important to where we can, especially with advice production, is to consolidate, where we're doing all of the modelling and using the tools when it comes to advice production. So that was a really big deal as well. the other thing we wanted to do was to integrate technology where we could. 

 

29:43:23 - 30:02:05 

So once we sort of looked at the technology we were going to be using, across the business, we wanted to make sure that those technology providers could provide an integration as well, because we wanted to reduce that double handling of the information, which was probably really happening in the client service team with manual focus on entering and that sort of thing. 

 

30:02:05 - 30:22:15 

So, just making sure that we're choosing tech that could accommodate, good integration. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. and look, in a larger business like this, I think you'll often see tech that have overlapping functions. so how do you kind of work through that, recommending, you know, which piece of tech do you use for what function? 

 

30:22:17 - 30:50:09 

Well, we sort of unpack why, potentially there is that overlapping technology being used. And quite often it's just because the business has been too busy, really, to address the fact, to grab something off the shelf. It's working. and, and we're just going business as usual, I guess, using those off the shelf tools. And it's probably not until you get to that point, we actually take a look and look at the visual of what we're using across that process that we can kind of ask the question why we're using these tools. 

 

30:50:14 - 31:12:05 

And quite often, you know, there's no sort of overly compelling reason to not dismantle some of those tools and move them into a more centralized area. Yeah. Okay. But that reduction of takes, not always the outcome. I think it's a good goal, obviously, to reduce the amount of tick and reduce complexity, wherever you can, but where it makes sense. 

 

31:12:18 - 31:30:15 

so in this case, was, was it a consolidation story, a simplification story, or was it a actually you're missing some take. We need to add back in probably more a consolidated story really. So what we ended up with was reduce tech in across the tech stack. But what we did end up with was a more well integrated, technologies. 

 

31:30:15 - 31:57:20 

We still have several things sitting in the in the tech stack, but the they're more integrated now. Yeah. Great. Okay. And Steve, so the review has been completed quite recently. Yeah. Any surprises? No. Unfortunately I'm excited about before. No single bullets. I wish it was that simple. Bullet for the complete. No. Yeah. looking, I think, well, tying the table to the title is like, every practice is sort of different, and I think there's no one size fits all. 

 

31:57:20 - 32:21:12 

Everyone's got a different way to do things. Everyone's got a different call until, interaction piece. And the drivers of that business is different for everyone. So it really does open your the. Yeah. The solution for my practice not going to be maybe the next one and said that that customer's fit is important. But you know it's just it was really good to get some that that I've you on the whole situation and get that really good technical expertise brought to the table. 

 

32:21:12 - 32:42:17 

So it was, really, really good for us. Okay, brilliant. okay. And so the reviews done. Danni. What's next? So what we've done is given, link, list of priorities. And what we wanted to do with those priorities is just sort of look at maybe those high impact, technology changes that can really impact positively across the team members. 

 

32:42:17 - 33:04:16 

And probably the biggest one that we identified was, that advice production pace, where that backlog was sitting. and with, you know, we want the advisors out. And as I said earlier, to be single clients and hitting those business goals. So that was a really big priority. also the client engagement piece, the client portal really important, obviously very tech savvy team, very, sort of younger client base as well. 

 

33:04:16 - 33:22:01 

So having that, client portal is really important for the crew. but again, you know, sort of pivoting, I think, on some of those decisions, which is also very normal to do in a tech review as well. I think client portal probably, prioritized a little bit over the, to the top of the priority list there. 

 

33:22:01 - 33:45:21 

So, we will pivot on those depending on how our recommendations have been digested across the. Craig. Yeah, make sense to adapt to changing business priorities and so on? Absolutely. Yeah. so Steve, Pete spoke about making sure that these reviews, you know, make sense from a ROI cost perspective. But there's always lots of upside as well. 

 

33:47:04 - 34:19:16 

tell me how that looks for you. And, are there any reasons that you would accelerate moving forward or delay moving forward with the findings? No, I don't know. Look at the ROI. What if we stacked up? we've seen a lot of benefits, coming out of our review in full. So, we sort of as getting alerted to, maybe raging when we pulled the trigger on some of the aspects of it, because we had to have a bottleneck at the minute through that collection of data that we're really focusing on, that I'm sure a lot of practices, how we get that data easier, more succinct and a better format. 

 

34:19:18 - 34:37:12 

So we put that at the top of the agenda. But, there's been no delay in sort of rolling with this. And from an ROI perspective, it definitely has stacked up from our perspective. Okay. I think just to add those two, we can some of these tech projects, depending on the resources in the business, can be run in parallel with each other as well. 

 

34:37:17 - 34:59:21 

So I well, as we put the priorities in place potentially, you know, we can run projects side by side again depending on the resources in the. Yeah, sure. It's not just a sequential kind of set of actions. There's some planning and a roadmap that you build around it. Yeah, yeah. Makes perfect sense. Okay. well, that leads us into the final part of our case study, today. 

 

34:59:23 - 35:28:08

So thanks, Steve. I'll introduce now Drew Meredith from Wattle Partners. now, Wattle Partners are in the home stretch of their tech transformation. So I think we'll get a different perspective from you today. Drew, you're the founder of Wattle Partners. it's a specialist financial advisory firm, really focused solely on retirement. and congratulations on the success of your, podcast, Australian Investors Podcast. 

 

35:28:08 - 35:45:13 

I'll give it a plug for you. and I often see you in trade press and so on. So you're well known around the industry. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Okay. So, let's start with the same question that I asked Steve. So what were the triggers for you? What were the reasons why you embarked on a tech review? 

 

35:45:19 - 36:03:07 

I think we were seeing this massive surge in client interest and organic growth. So just a lot of growth coming through to the point that the number of clients we had was being outweighed by the number of prospects, and there were prospects that were actually in our target market. So it wasn't. And we had these bottlenecks were popping up everywhere. 

 

36:03:18 - 36:20:14 

and what concerned myself, my business partner Jamie, was being able to not necessarily just deal with the prospects, but actually continually deliver the same service to our existing clients at the same time. So you don't want that. Obviously, you don't want to drop your service level while dealing with new prospects. And how do you combine both of those at the same time? 

 

36:20:14 - 36:39:11 

We've got ambitions. We on retirement is something that we're very big on. We only prefer over time. So, we've got ambitions to be national. So how do you have an advisor in Adelaide, an advisor in Perth, without having a really consistent, process for everybody business. So that was kind of the big driver of engaging for sure. 

 

36:39:13 - 37:04 

Fantastic. So it's all about growth for you really, and supporting that growth of your business and efficient growth I think is key. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense okay. And Danni, can you just talk us through the steps that you undertook with portal, and the work that was done. Yeah. So similar. to Link Wealth, we went through our discovery sessions with the model crew. 

 

37:12 - 37:25:16 

and what we discovered, the to Drew’s point was a business that does have a very high volume of leads coming through. So that was probably, you know, the, the high level, issue that we needed to sort through before we moved down into advice. so we, we sort of worked on the system that was going to handle and manage those leads, and then get it down into the, the implementation and, and client engagement piece as well. 

 

37:25:18 - 37:47:06 

The other thing was there was probably, lack of really good processes, but not consistent processes being used across the board as well. So we needed system that was the team could move into that was going to be able to handle the workflow. and a very high volume of workflow as well. So more automation around the processes that, that were using and around the tasks and that sort of thing. 

 

37:47:16 - 38:05:15 

client engagement, of course. Obviously really high touch, high value clients, for, for the model crew. So we needed to investigate a client engagement solution as well. and we also did look at the cyber security as well and make sure that we were sort of ticking off, the cyber security points for the business as well. 

 

38:05:15 - 38:24:02 

I think, like every planning firm, we thought we had good processes and to actually put them under pressure and real pressure. Yeah, right. They like they were breaking down everywhere. It was just bottlenecks. And now our role is to work out those bottlenecks and think, you know, 3 or 4 years ahead, rather than letting them become databases. 

 

38:24:04 - 38:41:14 

I think reporting as well for you, us, it was all it was also a bit of an issue because we had the data sitting on in different areas. We had processes sitting in different areas. Getting a consolidated view was tricky for anyone who was putting together reports. They had to go to different sources to, to get those that information to compile the reports. 

 

38:41:16 - 39:03:13 

Got it, got it. Okay, so we're in the final stages of the implementation. When was the review done? Can you just talk us through the timeline here. So when was it done. How long did it take. You know, and when? There was a bit of discussion before we got to the review. Rashard of my colleague who's, who's out of this project entirely would be completely on top of that. 

 

39:03:13 - 39:28:05 

But I feel like it was around August, September last year, you know. okay. So let's take in what's that for nine months and we're almost fully executing it. I think the issue there was, more so that we took the opportunity to review every part of our business rises and workflow and tasks. and we'd also introduced quite a new, quite a few new team members to business as well. 

 

39:28:05 - 39:44:17 

So everyone has slightly different ways of doing things. So, I think you probably tell us you can execute the tech stack in, you know, weeks if you were building from scratch. Yeah, but the business is very different. Yeah. And you need to, I think, for us to make sure that process that all the tech is being used properly. 

 

39:44:24 - 40:03:21 

we actually had to redo, rethink about our entire workflow to make sure it was going to be completely, you know, executed by every member of our team. Yeah, but I think I said, Drew, at some point, I mean, every business could run very well without customers, staff. on that side, you know, so anything we put in pipeline, yes, can be executed really efficiently. 

 

40:03:21 - 40:22:17 

But I think that, probably the value we add is the empathy of understanding. It's not a static environment. And so having that ongoing dialog with one was really important to be across even just what those people changes were, what you were working on. so we could adapt our execution plan for that. So that's how intimate we have to be that close. 

 

40:22:17 - 40:41:19 

And is this pretty consistent with what you're seeing in the industry, Pete? businesses have a trigger. They command such a review and then kind of think, hang on, we might need to zoom out a bit here and think about our model, think about our processes, think about our people and so on. And how do you kind of stitch those various elements together? 

 

40:41:21 - 41:17 

Yeah, it always does. I think whenever someone comes in the outside, we even experience that scenario when we have external partners we work with. You always ask ourselves those questions. and I think in a business like model, in many of our clients, they are tend to be high grade businesses. They're doing a lot. so there's all these external variables that come into the picture. 

 

41:17 - 41:17:09 

And actually we love that. That's actually what makes the value, because we know the stuff we're going to implement, we're really going to make a difference in the business. So and from a vendor perspective, we we're, we're all for let's keep shopping the X before we start swinging with tech. So we're happy to take a breath, get the client comfortable. 

 

41:17:12 - 41:32:19 

There's other variables we're not sure of yet. And hit the pause button on certain initiatives and just focus on things we know we're a no brainer. Things that have to be executed. and the more we know our client, the better at that, I think. I think it's probably fair to say we, we do open up a can of worms as well. 

 

41:32:19 - 41:51:18 

So when we get to each of the, the areas of, we're looking at advice for client engagement, client engagement especially, it's a whole strategy in itself. You have to rethink and reimagine the way that you want to interact with your clients moving forward. Because if they've been getting emails from you, you know forever that they've have to log in to a portal or whatever it might be. 

 

41:52:09 - 42:06:14 

and what are they going to say when they get into that portal? And are they going to need to be trained and all that stuff? It's a whole it's a whole piece of work in itself. Yeah. Okay. I can see how that would throw up a whole range of questions for a business owner. Yeah, this is probably something we're going to be as good at in Australia. 

 

42:06:15 - 42:25:24 

Maybe that's because the tech hasn't been as good. But so we traveled to future person in the US for the last year, and the entire event for three days was that client experience nation, you know, Funny Nation. And how do you give each client the same experience all the way through, whether it's, you know, they've clearly got better tech the way you do in most cases, yeah, there's a much bigger market for sure. 

 

42:25:24 - 42:48:16 

But and that's something that's always been our focus, as we're growing or just running our business, you know. And it's a really balance, isn't it, because we have such a highly regulated environment still, with so many processes, just have to be done irrespective. but equally, firms like Wattle and Link revolving so much they want to really push the limits of that and do things differently because they consider marketing that. 

 

42:48:16 - 43:06:15 

So getting that balance right, it's going to be a real challenge for this industry for next five changes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Got it. Okay. And in this case how does a business feel about the recommendations. Are you feeling any resistance in the business to change or any people related issues coming up like that? I didn't know this. 

 

43:06:15 - 43:24:21 

When Danni would come into the office about what's coming next. I think the our team is very close. So everyone was kind of getting frustrated about the same things, and everyone could see the bottlenecks in their vocal, letting us know when there's things, that are frustrating then. so everyone was kind of, open to it. 

 

43:25:12 - 43:41:24 

I think it was more making sure they're involved in the process. And we ran a few strategy days where we talked about what it look like. We kind of restructured our team. So not a traditional associate advisor, structure as well, and then involved them in each step. So each time, each and occasionally the meetings with the Nero. 

 

43:42:08 - 44:08 

but I think it was also important not to have had this isn't who has a subcommittee or not having too much involvement from day to day, from every part, every member of the team. Because we know everyone has different ideas and different experiences. So we have to kind of blend those in to a one solution, to make sure it's, you know, fully implemented. 

 

44:10 - 44:18:20 

Got it. I think you've also at the bottle, could have done really well, getting one person in the business to own this, because we can we can only do so much. We do need people on the other side to actually own, the area or whatever it is you're doing. You've got one person managing that which has been really effective. 

 

44:19:03 - 44:35:03 

it's one person for us that we need to deal with. And, and one person from your side is sort of rolling out that strategy and communicating that strategy, which has been, really effective at the fact we shot off that. Yeah, yeah. And that was, I think one of the other questions was about what were the issues. 

 

44:35:05 - 44:52:08 

Has it been delayed? and I think it was probably, unexpected how much involvement we needed to have. Yeah. Okay. And it was dealing with business as usual while we were trying to execute code change. I kind of compared it to trying to turn a cruise ship that was going quite quickly. That, everything's going really quickly to try to change everything at the same time. 

 

44:52:08 - 45:20:20 

So, yeah, essentially we took old client work, away from Shayna so she could only focus on this, implementation across the cross business in setting us up. Yeah. Look, I think all up, that's a great recommendation for people out there, right? Pete spoke about you need capacity to get these things done and to do it well, having a single point of contact to just take accountability and drive that into the business, taking all the work of that person so that they've got the capacity that you need to be able to manage it. 

 

45:20:20 - 45:37:12 

So that the whole thing kind of keeps that keeps rolling. I think, great recommendation. And in 99% of cases, it's not the business owner. In fact, we often discourage it. being the business owner, there's always someone like over on or in a, in a business. And in fact, they're ready to step up if you give them that opportunity. 

 

45:37:12 - 45:52:20 

And I love it. You know, it's a great career development opportunity for them as well. So, it doesn't have to be on your shoulders as a business owner. Okay. Drew, just talk us through the results so far. Is it is it been worth it? What are the results that you're saying? It helps me sleep at night. 

 

45:52:21 - 46:12:15 

I think a bit better if that, knowing that the process for new people coming in, they're being welcomed appropriately. They're all receiving the same, experience and same for our existing clients. So that helps a lot. in terms of, like, cost. I'm confident we'll cut probably 10 or 15% from our tech investment. And, you probably know better than maybe what my take investment is. 

 

46:12:15 - 46:35:19 

I think 100 and 250. Yeah. So if you think 10 to 20% of that in saving 10 to $20,000. Yep. Yep. Great. and I think it's also allowed us to focus more on the when it bottlenecks our, in our business and not necessarily now we we're confident we can double our number of clients without adding double the amount of staff, which means we have to hire less administration probably. 

 

46:35:19 - 47:02:03 

And junior staff and if you think that we probably need two more if we if we want to do it. So that's probably 120 or 30,000 in annual staff costs as well. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. And is this pretty consistent with what you see Pete. So assume these savings are coming from either list or fuel licenses. Yeah, we tend to we always find initially firms when we do a date diagnostic they're paying for things that we realize they're paying for, that we're not using. 

 

47:02:10 - 47:19:19 

so SAS companies are really, really good at getting credit card details and billing you in a way that sort of slips out of it. Right? So, often always find low hanging fruit there. but we absolutely look at utilization and all those things as well. So 10% is not an unusual scenario. What we find, from initial cost perspective. 

 

47:19:19 - 47:36:15 

And then you add the people side of it, that's a that's another equation. But in all cases it's actually about getting people out of mundane tasks and actually doing stuff that really impacts the client and the business. And that's business a level. That's what they need, not people behind the scenes doing double data entry systems. Yeah, I mean, totally. 

 

47:36:15 - 47:55:14 

I mean, obviously this review was all about enabling growth. It was. But if you can just underwrite that with some efficiency savings in the business, introducing any the change is kind of painful. and then ultimately the tech improvement is enabling that growth as well. And that's the upside. The other latter is a lot of that clients, outsource. 

 

47:55:14 - 48:17:22 

So they'll use offshore, resources which, you know, I know are cheaper than local resources but not inexpensive. and there is often a thing of if you just pass on port prices and systems to offshore stuff, you're still having the same issues as well. So we do find, if we get this right and we involve those offshore partners, particularly, they get a lot more bang for buck out of those relationships as well. 

 

48:17:23 - 48:39:05 

Right. Make sense? And you said before the review that there was staff that were frustrated. Yeah. How are they feeling now. How are they feeling about the the outcome. And are they seeing any improvements there? I think they're relieved. And because we've gone through this workflow review, it's given them more confidence. And you know, I think in most part we're not a huge practice that we're up to like 12, 12, 12 team members. 

 

48:39:08 - 48:59:02 

Yep. and I think there's always overlap within advanced practices of and who's responsible for what. And then errors come when no one's truly responsible. So I think hopefully they'll give me the feedback when I get back to the office. But, I think that they're more clear on what their role is. And it's, and we and then products are easier to identify, easy to fix now. 

 

48:59:08 - 49:21:10 

Yeah. And in different areas. And that way before. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. and any model there on the home stretch. so tell me the review was commenced in August. So last year, is this kind of like painting the Harbor Bridge like you've finished and now you've got to go back again? Oh, yeah. You know, we all know that tech does move quickly. 

 

49:22:01 - 49:42:22 

and things do change and businesses change should priorities and so on and so forth. So tell us what the process looks like from here on in. Yeah definitely I'm Sydney Harbor Bridge situation. Sorry just for us, but so yeah, I think, technology is evolving and it's evolving really quickly. And I think it's really important to stay on top of the technology that you're using. 

 

49:42:22 - 50:14:09 

You know, what's working today may hopefully have some really good features into the future or might not really work for you into the future. So you've got to constantly assess that every 12 months. and I think just sort of being really, cautious to stay on track, don't sort of go off track, I think is probably l am advice stick with what you've got, give it a chance to, to work in the business and then, you know, do you do your reviews after that I think is probably the advice moving forward and help and our model for that. 

 

50:14:11 - 50:37:06 

So we, we obviously dial back our intensity with clients when they come off projects, but we don't want to sort of let them go completely because you don't want to come back in two years time and it's all broken. so, so our view is that we would come back and visit those firms semi-regularly, maybe even join their management meetings to discuss what's going on with tech, how things are tracking, and keep them updated on what's happening in the broader ecosystem of the things that are relevant for them. 

 

50:37:06 - 50:56:17 

We would say our role is providing that insight. Yeah. Okay. and look, we did see a slide earlier with lots of tech providers. And we know that we spoke about each business is unique. So it's not a one size fits all. But how do you help a business like juries through deciding which bits of tech are the right ones. 

 

50:56:17 - 51:14:05 

So who should you partner with kind of where should you put your chips in terms of which partners should you use for your business? Do you wanna go? Yeah. I got there's a couple of things. So, we obviously look at, you know, Fazeley is the solution doesn't stack up on its own merits, doesn't do what it claims to do. 

 

51:14:05 - 51:27:09 

And Danni and the time do a lot of research in the space, so we're on top of that. So that's fundamental. but the second point is we look at, does that software vendor have a good support model? Yes, I can, I work with a firm like a Wattle or can they support that or I very much a hands off tech firm. 

 

51:27:11 - 51:50:20 

And the third one is, is it a is it a company that's actually going to be in business in the long run. So there is zero value in partnering with companies that maybe don't have that longevity. and, and equally, if firms like model or others want to acquire and do different things or merge with other practices, we, we really try and avoid going for anything that's too bespoke or unique because it actually can make it really hard to integrate in the future. 

 

51:50:20 - 52:09:10 

So it's not just one factor, but we do think there's a there's got to be an element of consistency in the call. because otherwise you, you can end up with something really bespoke that no one understands how it works as well. Yeah, yeah. And just another question. you know, in tech we sometimes think about tech moving at two speeds. 

 

52:09:10 - 52:25:23 

You've got that kind of core tech that you want to be nice and stable and reliable. but there's other parts of the business where you want your tech to kind of move quickly, where you need to innovate and so on. So is that do you kind of think about that in a similar way for advice businesses? 

 

52:26:00 - 52:46:12 

Yeah, I do all the time. And I think there's two elements. One is the tech that gets those common jobs to be done across the business done. So reduction of device, getting data off clients client experience. And then there's other tech that I think is more personal. You know, that helps us in our daily productivity and, things why we use Microsoft, the why we use all the other apps, calendar management apps and all these sort of things. 

 

52:46:12 - 53:11:22 

So that's probably for me where the real innovation and agility comes in, where we'll see more and more things happen, and I'm sure we'll will talk about AI a lot more. But that's where we see the value in those tools. and so we're pretty, you know, realistic with that clients. We say, look, let's get to get the core stable, the things that are business critical, but allow the business to the freedom to explore and experiment with other things that we know we're going to have, you know, good marginal productivity improvements and make them happy. 

 

53:11:24 - 53:25:12 

I think for us about knowing our client and who the in cloud is as well. So a lot of like a lot of advice for firms. I think the client would have lots of 60 and 70 and even things like, you know, DocuSign can be challenging. You know, a lot of people use iPads and these things don't always work perfectly. 

 

53:25:12 - 53:44:23 

So one is knowing who that is. And and for us, we're doing like a call it a beta test. So not just executing that to 200 people at the same time, because we we know will become a help desk for software if we do that. Yeah. So testing it and finding out what the issues are, then educating and taking our clients on the journey while we're executing it. 

 

53:45:01 - 54:03:16 

Yeah. and I think that should hopefully, you know, speed up the process of, full adoption of it. Yeah. Brilliant. okay. That makes that makes a lot of sense. Any other recommendations or suggestions for business owners out there that might be thinking about going through this kind of process? Can I like can I knock this guy, just do it? 

 

54:03:16 - 54:21:14 

Is that, so we've been, Jamie, I've been doing this since, like 2005, and I think we've tried to execute every new piece of technology sells, whether it's plugging things in here and there and trying to take on. So while doing well, trying to grow the business, and, you know, like, we're not particularly big fan. 

 

54:21:15 - 54:39:13 

So it's find a professional and execute it properly because particularly if you have a if you have a growth outlook and you want to you say minimize it. Planning for him to say organic growth anyway. but if you got a growth outlook just execute it, get it done and and reduce your stress. Trust me. yeah. Fantastic. 

 

54:39:15 - 55:02:24 

Okay. thanks a lot. True. Look, it wouldn't be a tech webinar without a question on AI. so, you know, we've seen this explosion of, hype around ChatGPT and copilot, and so on. And, look, I do think there's so much potential here. talk to us about the role that you think this kind of tech complaint advice business people. 

 

55:04:04 - 55:21:23 

so it's still very early days where we're, you know, oh, just in the first stage of I think we're still all learning as we go. I was to say, a lot of our clients come to us asking about AI and the and I call it hitting everything that the AI stick AI will solve that. I will solve that. 

 

55:21:23 - 55:40:05 

But but what's really important now is that, I, I only works really, really well for you if your data is well structured and accessible. so, for example, a lot of clients we know have tried to turn on copilot and pay for those things on Microsoft's Copilot, which is the AI capability. But then we find out they don't have all that data in SharePoint. 

 

55:40:09 - 55:59:18 

They've got data on people's desktops, and someone uses Dropbox and someone needs Google Drive, and they got all these types of things that are good and well. Of course it's not good because it can't access your information to get contextual support. So, I think there's a real need for, safe curiosity. I would call it with using AI from a personal perspective. 

 

55:59:18 - 56:14:07 

And so we, we use it for, but we're still learning as we go our way and just pick a couple of small use cases that you think are good for you. Obviously, things like content generation and helping you write better emails. I think a lot of us have younger, younger staff with 40 years of cop. Right. 

 

56:14:07 - 56:34:24 

Very well. Used to writing everything in 147 characters and need to write differently for mature clients. So a great example with generative AI is I'm writing an email to a seven year old client. This is what he or she is like. Can you help me write it in a way that they would resonate? Yeah, I think that's a great way of using AI, sure, but I want to talking about changing the entire world. 

 

56:34:24 - 56:54:02 

So, our advice is always experiment really safely. Use the Microsoft version of Copilot dive pretty common data into open AI. Yeah. Those things. And in fact, Danni and the guys have been some of our partners been working on a safer usage of AI, framework for licensees. Okay. Rolling that out in the next month, we're all in that out. 

 

56:54:11 - 57:14:12 

because we decided we want to, you know, at the end, the government and the industry pretty slow on this stuff. So we just thought, let's let's put something out there to help licensees have a framework, at least for usage. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Okay. I think just to echo that, the research that we've done confirms that there are cyber risks around using standalone AI tools. 

 

57:14:14 - 57:41:17 

So, you know, taking private sensitive information, client information and sending that over the internet to, you know, a ChatGPT or open AI type tool. definitely has a lot of cyber risk associated with it. but when you're talking about an embedded AI to, like Copilot embedded into the Microsoft ecosystem where you might already have, a lot of client information or other business information available for that tool to, to synthesize. 

 

57:41:24 - 58:02:11 

looks like that's where the real value is for businesses going forward. And we see AI is being a feature of products people already use. So we're seeing, some of the big CRM, like Salesforce and Zoho started putting AI features, helping you complete data on those things, which is great. I'm sure you see opportunities for sure that your platform is to use AI features, and I think that's where the best value will be. 

 

58:02:12 - 58:25:22 

Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. All right. Well, I think that brings us to the end of the webinar. So thanks everyone for joining us. I'd like to thank, Pete, Danni Drew, Steve. I think that was really useful. So hopefully, everyone watching, got some really good takeaways and, and some useful tips that you can take into your own tech stack review. 

 

58:26:11 - 58:54:16 

we'll be sending out the CPD certificates next week. if you want any more information about tech transformations or CFS 10x, contact your CFS BDM. If you want to share or rewatch this webinar, just head to CFS.com.au/10x. We've got two more webinars coming up. One on the 6th of June and one on the 12th of June. 

 

58:54:18 - 59:16:04 

And those two are all about ethics. so we'll give you two ethics hours of CPD for those webinars also coming up. and of course, I’m the exec in charge of CFS Edge. So it would be remiss of me not to suggest that you guys check out CFS Edge, a new market leading platform. Reach out to your BDM and we'll help you with that. 

 

59:16:06 - 59:21:08 

So thanks everyone and have a great day.