It is the connective tissue that binds together a bunch of financial issues that once might have seemed unrelated but that now are joined. The Internet allows us to serve all of those needs through one portal. But what we soon realized was that even if customers made online transactions, they usually wanted to follow up with human beings. That's just one strategic surprise that I've encountered. There are sites that allow people to combine all of their personal accounts in a single location.
Aggregation is both a capability and a strategy.
The capability lets clients see a more comprehensive picture of their net worth. From a strategic standpoint, advisers can now better understand their clients' entire financial perspective. First, you figure out which strategic moves you want to make, and then you figure out how to use technology to make those moves. Technology changes so quickly that if you're basing a decision solely on what's possible today, you're not going to be in a very good position 6 to 12 months later. That said, you can't write your strategy on a whiteboard and leave it there forever.