Thoughts

How Good is T. Rowe Price’s Forecast?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 15, 2016, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

T. Rowe Price recently announced a significant expansion of its advisor-focused Sales efforts. Per Ignites (subscription), the firm plans to:

  • Double the size of the 32-person broker-dealer Sales force
  • Add 4 internals to the RIA team in order to create a 1:1 external-to-internal ratio

These announcements always make a splash in the industry. People are interested in questions about the potential success of the effort – does a firm like T. Rowe Price have enough brand equity with advisors to warrant such an investment? does a 1:1 ratio make sense for RIA teams?

But the part that interests me most is the proposed timeframe of the build-out, which T. Rowe Price pegs as 2-3 years. Why? Because the time horizon:

  • is not so short as to make the plan a sure thing, as firms can generally accomplish short-term initiatives with relatively high probability
  • is not so long as to make the projection somewhat meaningless, as the specifics of a 10-year plan within a given firm tend to boil down to pure speculation

Three years is short enough for a firm to make a reasonable projection, and long enough where many things can change and impact the outcome. This makes the significant and public nature of T. Rowe Price’s plan interesting. Consider some of the things that could materially impact the expansion plan over 3 years:

  • a bull or bear market
  • strong or weak relative product performance
  • shifts in advisors’ and investors’ product preferences toward or away from T. Rowe Price’s offerings
  • management team stability or turnover
  • operationalizing and managing a much bigger Sales team

I’d imagine T. Rowe Price has modeled the various scenarios and is committed to the plan. But I also think that the non-controllable (and even some of the controllable) variables are potentially-impactful. So, over the course of the proposed timeframe there is at least a decent chance that the firm will markedly deviate from the plan as it is defined today.

It will be interesting to see, 2-3 years down the road, just how good T. Rowe Price’s forecasting proves to be.

A Digital Commitment Within Channel

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 01, 2016, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

When you look at sites like this, what do you think? I see a firm highly engaged in selling and servicing US plan sponsors seeking input beyond their recordkeepers. I think this raises the bar for everyone else.

Why?

  1. The thought leadership throughout is expertly curated for the audience.
  2. That thought leadership comes in multiple formats: video, product materials, whitepapers and blog posts.
  3. Access to product information is visible but not overbearing.
  4. The site renders quickly and uniformly on my laptop and mobile phone.

The missing component is straightforward access to contacting the US DC team. Make no mistake, this is not unique to AB (see BlackRock and SSgA for examples). Yet, I suspect we will a proliferation of similar DC sites in 2016. Stay tuned as we’ll update the blog as we find other firms’ competing efforts.

2015 – A Year for the Content Juggernauts

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 31, 2015, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

In 2015 we saw many firms accelerate their content production. Firms like BlackRock, JPMorgan, SSgA, even WisdomTree, produced more thought leadership more frequently than in previous years. So do all firms need to produce volume like the aforementioned? No but there is some baseline of “enough” required to ensure relevancy. I’d set that bar at 10 unique pieces (inclusive of whitepapers, market commentaries, blogs, etc.) per month for a credible US retail-oriented asset manager. (Contact us and I can tell you why 10).

After reaching that level, an intriguing question to consider: what do we want our content convey? I believe high-quality content conveys a firm’s investment process and philosophy contextually relative to current global market events, in a tone and style resonant with the primary target audience. Firms focused on RIAs will want their content to convey something very different than firms primarily different channels. The first step towards designing conveyance is to understand current state. Ask does today’s content convey our process and philosophy via a unified tone and do we believe that resonates with our primary target?

Publishing Your Consultant Relations Teams

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 30, 2015, in Thoughts , tagged with , , ,

A recent conversation with a client sparked me to look into consultant relations. And out of these six firms, I was surprised to see only JPMorgan puts faces and names for their consultant relations teams onto a public Web page. For this important constituency, I would consider making an inbound connection easier and more personable.

 Firm Consultant Relations Page # of People
T. Rowe Price Yes Unknown
Vanguard No Unknown
 AB  No Unknown
Wellington No Unknown
Northern Trust No No unified page
JPMorgan Yes 5 people

 

Is Custom Publishing Pertinent to Asset Management?

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 28, 2015, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

As 2015 winds down, I’m thinking of interesting marketing initiatives seen this year. Custom publishing from AB came to mind. The above piece is from October and custom published through Pensions Expert in the UK. This effort succeeds on three levels. The piece:

  1. Introduces and/or strengthens the firm’s relationship with a magazine’s audience (U.K. Pension managers).

  2. Shows AB’s commitment and knowledge about U.K. retirement issues .

  3. Aligns AB with well-known industry experts such as AON Hewitt, adding credibility.

Is custom publishing right for every firm? It’s hard to say, yet if a goal is building relevancy in a new channel in a growth region, then this could be a solid technique to consider.