September 22, 2025 | By Charly Morris, Trainer and Project Manager
Technology in financial services is developing quickly, creating both opportunity and complexity. More providers offer AI tools and practice management platforms, giving firms greater choice but harder decisions. How do you introduce new systems while maintaining service quality? How do you ensure solutions match your client proposition, not just vendor promises? How do you integrate AI into existing tech stacks and encourage actual adoption rather than expensive shelf-ware? How do you maintain data quality through migration and daily flow?
Each decision influences efficiency, yes – but also staff engagement, client experience, and ultimately business value.
Beyond efficiency: the cultural challenge
AI improves efficiency, but adoption is rarely simple. Many solutions aren’t fully integrated, limiting how firms leverage gathered data. Staff reactions vary wildly, some welcome automation of repetitive tasks, others worry about role security or capability obsolescence.
AI won’t replace financial advice’s human element. Individual circumstances and complex situations still demand judgment and empathy. Where AI adds genuine value is closing the advice gap by delivering simplified, accessible guidance for clients who don’t need (or can’t afford) comprehensive financial planning.
For AI to succeed, firms must prepare for cultural change, develop new skills, and invest in ongoing training. This isn’t a project with an end date, it’s continuous embedding of new tools into business fabric.
Planning for implementation success
Rushed technology implementations usually fail, but not because of the software. They fail because of weak planning, poor data handling, or inadequate training. Map out how new technology affects processes, roles, client journeys, and data flows before purchasing anything.
The critical elements: Data (cleansing, migration, and flow must be pristine), Integration (availability, direction, and ease of use determine whether systems help or hinder), Processes (define your firm’s best way of working before configuring technology around it), Planning (clear roadmaps, even simple ones, prevent expensive mistakes), and Time (realistic schedules including contingency and proper training, not vendor-driven deadlines).
Technology projects rarely fail because of software limitations. They fail because fundamentals weren’t addressed.
Impact on business value
Technology decisions materially affect long-term business value, but impact depends on timing and approach. If sale is likely within two years, maintaining system stability may serve you better than transformation that complicates integration for buyers. If growth is the priority, invest in scalable solutions strengthening operations, but recognise that bespoke systems rarely add sale value unless acquirers view them as superior to their own infrastructure.
Most buyers prefer firms using widely adopted, easily integrated platforms. Choose technology strategy aligned with exit strategy, whether that’s three years or thirty.
How Jigsaw Tree helps
Every firm’s situation is unique. Some adopt new systems for the first time. Others have platforms for years but use fraction of potential; poor planning, weak data migration, or limited training prevent technology delivering promised benefits.
Our expertise lies in unlocking that potential. Whether you need guidance on AI selection, support with CRM implementation, or help embedding processes and training, we ensure technology actually works for your business rather than against it.
Harnessing management information in the age of tech enablement
August 26, 2025 | By Gemma Lowndes
In today’s digital environment, the ability to generate, interpret, and apply data separates thriving firms from struggling ones. At the heart of this capability sits Management Information (MI)—the structured insights your systems produce that should inform strategy, compliance, and growth.
Yet too many firms drown in data while starving for insight. They generate reports nobody reads, track metrics nobody acts on, and wonder why expensive technology hasn’t transformed decision-making.
What management information actually Is
MI represents tangible results of your systems and workflows—KPIs, operational metrics, financial indicators, and structured insights providing holistic views of performance. These outputs should equip decision-makers with clarity for strategic, evidence-based choices. When done right, MI becomes your informational backbone, driving efficiency, resilience, and competitive positioning.
The problem? Most firms confuse data collection with insight generation. They’re not the same thing.
The role of KPIs that matter
KPIs should provide measurable performance indicators across multiple dimensions—revenue growth, client satisfaction, operational efficiency. When carefully selected and consistently interpreted, they align performance with strategy, act as early warning systems for risk or underperformance, and ensure teams move in step with organizational goals.
But many firms track vanity metrics that feel impressive while revealing nothing actionable. The test of good MI isn’t volume, it’s whether it changes decisions.
Tech enablement: from static reports to dynamic intelligence
Technology transforms MI from backward-looking reports into forward-looking intelligence. By leveraging advanced analytics, AI, and automation, firms can clean and validate raw data for accuracy, identify trends and predictive insights, and deliver real-time dashboards for instant decision support.
This shift from “what happened yesterday” to “what drives success tomorrow” creates competitive advantage. Technology ensures MI informs future strategy, not just historical record-keeping.
Empowering decision-makers
MI’s ultimate value lies in empowering leaders with timely, relevant, accurate information. This enables evaluating initiative success (marketing campaigns, service changes), assessing financial health and forecasting growth, optimizing operational efficiency across teams, and responding effectively to both internal challenges and external market shifts.
Informed decisions fuel agility, enabling firms to pivot quickly in rapidly changing business and regulatory landscapes.
The challenges nobody talks about
Creating reliable MI comes with real challenges. Data accuracy must be safeguarded through rigorous quality controls; garbage in, garbage out remains true regardless of analytical sophistication. Bias and misinterpretation distort decision-making when teams don’t understand what metrics actually measure. And evolving technologies require continuous adaptation and investment, not one-time implementations.
Strong data governance, validation processes, clear definitions, accountability structures all help mitigate these risks while maximising output value.
It’s no longer optional
In an era defined by digital transformation, Management Information isn’t nice-to-have, it’s essential for survival. MI transforms raw data into insights guiding strategy, strengthening compliance, and empowering leadership.
As technology accelerates, firms investing in meaningful, actionable MI won’t just thrive in the marketplace, they’ll stay aligned with regulatory expectations while building businesses worth more because decisions are grounded in reality rather than assumption.
How Jigsaw Tree helps
If your business isn’t realising MI’s full potential, we can help. With decades of hands-on experience across Financial Advice systems, we specialize in aligning processes and MI requirements—ensuring your firm is equipped to make smarter decisions and embrace future growth.
