The Covid pandemic effect on corporations in the asset and wealth management industry has been significant – and obviously, it still is. 2021 is a period of vast transformation and change, the years to come will show us how to deal with the new realism. How can we anticipate on new procedures, how can we improve our processes?

While hitting some sectors harder than others, the pandemic did reveal multiple weaknesses in all of them. Business leaders have no choice but to tackle today’s challenges head-on and strive to emerge stronger. This puts strategic restructuring and transformation at the top of the CXO’s agenda. The economic and social turmoil since the Covid-19 outbreak has made corporate leaders – across multiple industries – realize that restructuring offers tremendous opportunities to reshape their business and business models for the next era. 

“Restructuring offers leaders tremendous opportunities to reshape their business and business models for the next era”

Jeroen van Zanten,
Global Head of Marketing & Communication at Boldergroup.com

This makes transformation an imperative for many, as it can solve problems that were previously difficult to address, and that have been accumulating before and during the crisis. As any crisis hold opportunities for improvement: now is the time to set the foundation for more sustainable growth.

 At bolder, we observe an increased emergence of following shifts within the corporate asset and wealth management industry.

Acceleration of digitization to keep up with the pace

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced corporations, asset managers and wealth professionals  to dramatically speed up their digital transformation. Like Teams did successfully make us to go remote overnight: the demand for increased productivity by digital tools and services will grow exponentially. At this very moment, we see corporate leaders and Asset & Wealth managers are teaming up with third-party solutions to keep up with the pace of change in consumer expectations and improve their business processes.  

These developments unlock huge opportunities for companies offering services, software and tools. But not without new challenges: corporate service providers all need to stay on top of the latest tech trends to face the rising competition from newcomers.  

Strategic Corporate focus to localize operations

As cross-border trade and growth of shared service centers has emerged significantly in the past decade, so did the expansion of global supply networks. Driven by less expensive labor and better transport & communications, strategic corporate focus has been on creating long and lean supply chains. With products, services and delivery managed in different geographies. 

As Covid-19 halts globalization in its tracks (at least temporarily), this is changing. Corporates and managers are now prioritizing flexibility over efficiency, as they look for new means to curb costs. Basically, global trade has previously led to mentioned long and lean supply chains, but today service delivery processes are becoming more localized as companies connect and work more locally to ensure less disruption in case of limited movement of people and goods. This shift was already well underway prior to the coronavirus outbreak, but Covid-19 has simply reinforced the change .

“Corporations and Asset & Wealth Managers will need to design the future way of working”

Jeroen van Zanten,
Global Head of Marketing & Communication at Boldergroup.com

New era of Working

Covid accelerated already existing trends in remote work, e-commerce and automation. Companies shift to flexible workspaces more permanently, after positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic: a change that will reduce the overall space they need and bring fewer workers in office.

As business comes surging back, corporations and asset & wealth managers are responsible for leading their companies through these fast-moving changes. They will need to leverage the opportunity to design the future way of working.Top priority for many companies: 

• How to optimize hybrid teams;
• Attract and retain workers with needed capabilities;
• Increase the amount of scarce skills present in the organization.

In addition, forward-looking organizations choose resources of expertise that can be deployed flexibly and on demand, making it easier for organizations to access the right skills when they need them. Being a global player ourselves, we see many multinational corporations and globally operating Asset & Wealth managers requiring corporate, legal and accounting services. Restructuring in this (hopefully) Post-Covid era can streamline and optimize your and bring corporate governance issues in line with the increasingly complex regulatory requirements.

Want to learn more on restructuring corporate services and Asset & Wealth Management? Just mail me at jeroen.vanzanten@boldergroup.com