2012 e-Excellence

Insight Programme

e-Excellence – informed, objective and transparent research for the financial

services industry

Contact Details

Finance & Technology Research Centre e-Excellence Research Enquiries

Ian McKenna, Director E: ian.mckenna@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2345

Samantha Smith, Head of Marketing & Administration E: samantha.smith@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2316 page 2

Testimonials

About e-Excellence Research

What sets e-Excellence research apart?

INFORMED F&TRC have a unique position in the consultancy market combining practical industry experience with leading edge thinking on innovation. Our consultants have been recruited from IFA businesses, giving us a detailed understanding of how such firms operate. This together with our insight into new developments and launches enables us to identify how organisations can take advantage of these to strengthen their own propositions.

OBJECTIVE One of the key differentiators which separate e- Excellence surveys from other e-commerce research, awards and ratings is that all providers are measured against an objective scoring model for each particular product area. A provider either has a particular piece of functionality or they do not – we deliberately do not include any subjective measures.

TRANSPARENT By actively engaging with the financial services community (providers, distributors, platforms and software vendors) from the early development stages in our process we are able to incorporate a diverse universe of approaches and opinions when building the survey content. This, together with regular reviews, gives the financial services community confidence in how our process works.

Who should participate in e-Excellence Research?

Companies looking to develop an existing online proposition Companies intending to launch an e-enabled service in the future

Since the e-Excellence ratings began in 2004, the areas we examine have been extended to include operational aspects of the adviser business process. The decision behind this has been two-fold; firstly the distributor firms who work with us on these studies have advised year-on-year that they are placing higher levels of importance on all aspects of life office support, not just technology. Secondly, a large number of providers have asked us to extend the remit of the studies, requesting that we investigate wider aspects of the distributor business processes to enable them to achieve a better understanding of what their businesses partners consider to be high importance and what service their competitors are offering to address these areas. As an organisation we are becoming increasingly involved in helping major distributor firms select their preferred business partners, as evidenced by a number of due diligence exercises we have been involved in to support major firms. In the run up to RDR, technology and service operations are increasingly becoming a key differentiator between life offices and platforms. This has been reiterated by major distributors including Honister Capital, National Australia Bank, Sesame Bankhall, RBS, AWD Chase de Vere, Positive Solutions, Origen, Threesixty Services and True Potential, all of whom have stated that the provision of automated services will be crucial in selecting business partners in the post RDR environment.

“As a new insurer with no prior experience of the e-Excellence research process, we impressed with the thoroughness of the methodology applied to form the structure and scope of the research. If I had know the meetings and detail was quite so rigorous I would have delegated it! The survey itself was extremely thorough and did not allow any vague generalisations to be made. It has actually prompted us to immediately rethink some of our processes and to accelerate aspects of our product proposition.”

John Ritchie, Chief Executive

“We found your selection process challenging and thorough. The survey questions were both relevant and comprehensive and we were very pleased to be called in for an in-depth interview to flesh out the answers we had given. I can definitely say we have never had such an in-depth analysis conducted on us and we found the results – a comprehensive external perspective of our company – both revealing and very useful for our business strategy. We have also noted that there has been a high level of reference among our financial advisers to the F&TRC award to us, indicating the esteem in which your surveys are held.”

Jan Regnart, Chief Executive

“F&TRC reports play an important role in our planning and development processes. It's clear from the output that Ian and his team have an excellent understanding of e-commerce in the financial services industry and we are delighted to be associated with them!”

Tony Jones Market Intelligence Manager (Corporate Benefits)

“The F&TRC e-Excellence research is easily the most comprehensive analysis in the market of providers’ online capabilities. It focuses on the key online services advisers’ value and allows providers’ to benchmark their propositions and identify areas for improvement.”

David Law, National Partnership Manager (Distribution Technology)

Contact Details

Finance & Technology Research Centre e-Excellence Research Enquiries

Ian McKenna, Director E: ian.mckenna@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2345

Samantha Smith, Head of Marketing & Administration E: samantha.smith@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2316 page 3

e-Excellence Process

Launched in 2004, the e-Excellence programme utilises F&TRC’s research to produce dedicated analysis to help providers understand to what extent their competitors are delivering e-enabled services and how these are meeting the needs of the intermediary sector.

e-Excellence Reports

Distributors

Providers

Market Practice

Analysis

Meetings held with key distributors to define adviser requirements and priorities

Construct scoring model based on preference exhibited by adviser firms

Meet with advance subscribing providers to agree questions to be included in the survey

Analyse provider propositions

Measure propositions against consistent, objective benchmarks (reviewed annually) to reflect the changing e-commerce priorities of the adviser community

Investigate market practices

Review legislative requirements

COMPETITOR & PRIORITIES REPORT

Specific analysis to demonstrate where an individual provider’s services require

enhancements to meet adviser needs

MARKET ANALYSIS REPORT

Documents detailed analysis of market trends, adviser requirements and

provider propositions

SECTIONAL ANALYSIS REPORT

Designed to provide a clear summary of a specific area (or areas) in the e-

Excellence study.

BUSINESS PROCESS REPORT

Enables the user to examine how business processes are being applied

across a range of products

Contact Details

Finance & Technology Research Centre e-Excellence Research Enquiries

Ian McKenna, Director E: ian.mckenna@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2345

Samantha Smith, Head of Marketing & Administration E: samantha.smith@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2316 page 4

2012 e-Excellence Reports – New Developments

Rolling Surveys

To ease the time burden on survey participants, we will be moving to permanently open surveys, allowing you to update your survey entry during the course of the year as new developments are rolled out. Our e-Excellence reports will be generated as a snapshot of the market on a given date – we will notify you 4-5 weeks in advance of when the survey results will be captured. Benefits for survey participants:

Where questions have been completed in previous surveys, answers will be rolled forward – the aim being that we can prepopulate as many questions as possible with your previous answers, allowing you to review responses rather than having to populate questions from scratch.

Rolling surveys will also give participants the ability to input details of new functionality as it is launched .

An essential part of the e-Excellence process is recognising that providers’ e-commerce offerings evolve during a year. Rolling surveys will allow providers’ to obtain a re-rating at any time as enhancements to their services are launched, negating the need to wait for the annual ratings to be published.

New Studies

Three new product areas will be come under scrutiny in the 2012 e-Excellence programme:

Group Medical Will examine the e-commerce and operational functionalities in the Group Private Medical Insurance market, with the results being published in Corporate Adviser Adviser Websites & B2C Explores the systems available to advisers to facilitate their own websites and B2C platforms, examining the packages available, tools, features and add-ons offered, design services, search engine optimisation, branding options etc. ISA & GIA Focuses on the Individual Savings and General Investment Account markets, where we will survey offerings from the wrap and fund management sectors as well as standalone products

Other things to note for 2012: Workplace Benefits The study will be developed to look more closely at the employer side of the

market

Financial Planning Tools This study will be restructured with Protection Tools being subsumed into the Individual Protection study. The remaining areas will be split into two separate reports, one focusing on Investment tools and the other on Pension tools

Wrap & Platforms This study will disappear from the 2012 programme. Instead the platform community will be invited to participate in the pension accumulation, drawdown, annuities and ISA & GIA studies

Competitor & Priorities Analysis Reports An onsite presentation of the report will be delivered as part of the purchase price. These presentation will typically be 2 hours in duration

24 – 7 - 365

Contact Details

Finance & Technology Research Centre e-Excellence Research Enquiries

Ian McKenna, Director E: ian.mckenna@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2345

Samantha Smith, Head of Marketing & Administration E: samantha.smith@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2316 page 5

e-Excellence Subject Area Product areas

to be examined

Advance Subscriber Participation Invited

Research Commences

Report

Available

Supplement Published

Group Pensions – including Auto Enrolment

Group Pensions, GPP inc. Stakeholder, Group CIMP, Group SIPP

September 2011 October 2011 January 2012 1 March 2012

Individual Protection

Life Protection, Critical Illness,

Income Protection, Menu Protection, Protection Tools

October 2011 November 2011 February 2012 26 April 2012

Financial Planning Tools Investment Tools November 2011 December 2011 March 2012 24 May 2012

Group Risk Group Life Protection, Group Critical Illness

Protection, Group Income Protection November 2011 December 2011 March 2012 1 June 2012

Pensions Accumulation Personal Pensions

Self Invested Personal Pension December 2011 January 2012 April 2012 28 June 2012

Financial Planning Tools Pension Tools January 2012 February 2012 May 2012 26 July 2012

Group Medical Group Private Medical Insurance February 2012 March 2012 June 2012 3 September 2012

Drawdown Income Drawdown, Unsecured Pensions,

Alternatively Secured Pensions March 2012 April 2012 July 2012 27 September 2012

Adviser Websites & B2C April 2012 May 2012 August 2012 25 October 2012

Workplace Benefits Workplace Marketing Solutions May 2012 June 2012 September 2012 1 November 2012

Annuities Conventional, Investment Linked, Variable,

Impaired Life Annuities June 2012 July 2012 October 2012 31 January 2013

ISA & GIA August 2012 September 2012 December 2012 31 January 2013

Adviser Software Systems Client Management Systems July 2012 August 2012 November 2012 28 February 2013

2012 e-Excellence Timetable

Contact Details

Finance & Technology Research Centre e-Excellence Research Enquiries

Ian McKenna, Director E: ian.mckenna@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2345

Samantha Smith, Head of Marketing & Administration E: samantha.smith@ftrc.co.uk T: 020 7659 2316 page 6

e-Excellence Reports – Extended Analysis

Additional level of research analysis

A number of organisations requested that we provide a more detailed level of information in Money Marketing, enabling readers to gain a greater perspective of the individual strengths and weaknesses of various providers’ propositions and better inform selection of provider business partners. Consequently e-Excellence supplements now show a series of star ratings, in addition to a provider’s overall e-Excellence ratings. The underlying star ratings are calculated using our benchmarking system and will identify an organisation’s strengths in approximately 50 key areas of their proposition. This increased level of detail means that the core strengths of a provider’s proposition will be clearly highlighted and documented. This should also allow those organisations that may have developed functionality in only a limited range of areas to identify the benefits of these offerings. This may be particularly useful as a way of helping advisers assess smaller providers who are delivering a niche service where the provider is not intending to compete side by side with large financial institutions.

“The independent benchmarking of Financial Planning Tools carried out through F&TRC’s e-Excellence research clearly demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, provider and software vendor who participated in the study. This in turn assists us to identify which suppliers have the best suite of tools to meet our needs, saving us time, effort and money whilst helping avoid the potential mistakes of poor selection.” Les Sharpe, Managing Director

Review Meetings (pre publication of the research) Organisations are notified of their star ratings at the same time as they are told of their PROVISIONAL e-Excellence ratings. Once these notifications have been issued, companies are offered a limited window of opportunity to book a meeting (at our offices in London) to review their underlying star ratings prior to the results of the study being finalised. The costs for these sessions will vary, depending on whether the underlying research has been subscribed to.

Adviser feedback

“An IFA’s day is increasingly taken up by administration and any systems which allow business to be transacted smoothly and quickly will always be appreciated. There is little more frustrating than insurance companies telling advisers their systems cut down on processing only to find the opposite. So in addition to the main product features any benchmarking system which further assists intermediaries in their choice making process can be extremely useful as using the right technology can help IFAs immensely.” Roy McLoughlin, IFA

"F&TRC's e-Excellence ratings have for many years been one of the key indicators we take into account when recommending arrangements to clients, the significant increase in the level of detail provided is a very welcome advance" Robin Hames, Head of Technical, Marketing & Research

Workshops (post publication of the research) A full presentation of the report A discussion on the five areas where we believe it is most important for the provider to carry out further development A review of the provider’s star ratings in up to ten categories of their choice (which would be appended to the normal

Competitor & Priorities report) NB: This service is only available where the full Competitor & Priorities report for the study has been purchased

Review Meeting and/or Workshop costs available on request