OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2015. For too long, the wealth management industry has been about 55-year-old men serving 55-year-old men. But the world is changing. An estimated \\$2 trillion is expected to transfer between generations in the next five years. Unsurprisingly, this new generation of investors does not want to work with their parents’ financial advisor. They don’t want quarterly, paper-driven reviews. And to have to call their advisors when they want to make changes to their portfolios.

Instead, they want engagement that is precise, proactive, personalized and available on any device. And it’s not just millennials who want this sort of connection with their advisors. In fact, according to our “2015 Wealth Management for Connected Investors” report, 65 percent of Baby Boomers similarly are seeking a much more collaborative approach to their wealth planning.

How can advisors step up? To date, they have been hampered with dozens of home-grown, on-premise systems that hinder their ability to build deeper relationships with clients and, ultimately, drain their productivity. That’s why today I could not be more thrilled to announce Salesforce Financial Services Cloud — a brand-new product from Salesforce that will transform the advisor-client relationship for the digital age, helping advisors be more productive and collaborate with their clients like never before. It’s revolutionary. And, in the war on bad customer experiences, it will help the financial services industry shift from defense to offense for the first time.

Between research and tracking down their clients’ information, it’s common knowledge that wealth advisors spend nearly half their time just preparing for client meetings. With Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, we are giving advisors back that critical time by providing the information they need in one place, eliminating the need to toggle between different systems. Now they can focus on what really matters — building deeper, 1-to-1 relationships with their clients.

Indeed, we’re arming advisors with the tools they need to communicate with each other and their clients in real-time, while adhering to compliance regulations. Advisors can now collaborate with all third-parties involved in a client’s financial life, such as their lawyers and accountants, to ensure they are providing holistic advice. And clients can break away from ad-hoc texting and rigid quarterly reviews. They can ask a question through their mobile app and a receive a response while in line for a cup of coffee or on their way to work.

Of course, we couldn’t do this alone. To create a product that truly meets the needs of the wealth management industry, we worked with customers such as AIG Advisor Group, Northern Trust and United Capital, and listened to their challenges, feedback and wishlists. And we also partnered with leading independent software vendors (ISVs) Advisor Software, Informatica and Yodlee to extend the functionality of the product even further with apps for portfolio rebalancing, data integration and account aggregation, respectively. And, this is just the beginning. Salesforce is behind the transformation of the client-advisor experience. With three seasonal product releases every year, we will continue to improve the product to ensure it is meeting the needs of our customers.

The connected investor experience has arrived! Advisors want to take back their days and build deeper relationships with their clients. Salesforce is here to help them exceed their expectations.

To learn more about Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, visit www.salesforce.com/financialservicescloud