Unlocking scalable growth for the future

Question 1. 

So the decision to look at business processes outsourcing was really driven by the fact that the business was keen to grow. The board gave us clear direction in terms of how they would like to see the business develop. We felt that we had to look at our scalability as a business. And obviously a key part of that is looking at your operating model and the technology you've got to today. And I think we recognised that there were some constraints within that model and that we needed to think about something different, approaches differently to how we've managed operations historically. And I think working with a third party consultancy firm, we went through a whole exercise of determining what the new operating model would look like. And obviously that led to conversations around BPO and outsourcing, not just the operational services but also the technology.

Question 2. 

For us, looking for a partner, cultural alignment was really important. I think finding a firm that actually had the same cultural values as Waverton was critically important. I think with all of these relationships, you have to go into them with your eyes wide open and working with people you can trust is a key criteria. Our people and Waverton's got a strong culture of looking after its staff was very important. It was a key part of that conversation. And actually, SEI showed us that they had the same mindset if you wish around people. And I think we gained a lot of confidence that particularly because we were TUPEing across our people to SEI, that they would be well looked after. 

I think the other things really that were very important to us was the credibility. I mean, SEI already serviced wealth managers and again, having a partner who had clients of a similar nature to Waverton was critical because you need to be able to understand whether that platform that you are migrating onto is established. It's mature, it can service your clients in a way that you would like them to sort of be serviced. But equally on the flip side of that, Waverton came into this relationship knowing that we would be stretching SEI services. We had a commitment with SEI as part of those conversations, early conversations around how our relationship would look in the future. And I think SEI gave us the confidence that they would invest into the necessary development to support that or support the services that Waverton team required, which was beyond really what SEI was offering today. And I think that helped a lot in terms of knowing what our operating model would look like in the future and the integration that we were looking to achieve.

Question 3. 

Well, I think any implementation is difficult and there are always going to be difficult conversations, you know, particularly as you get closer to the live date and go no go decisions. I think there's always a degree of stress and tension between the two teams, but equally, we always saw ourselves as a single team. We always worked closely together. SEI’s response to any challenges was always positive. They always came up with the right answers and responded the way we would like them to respond. And the way that we felt that reinforced that partnership mentality that both sides had. 

And a good example of that really was as we pivoted as we went through the project, we had to make a change to one of the elements which was related to trading. And really it required us to pivot the project in a particular direction that wasn't laid out in the initial scope. And actually again, we wouldn't have been able to achieve that in the timeframe we had without SEI support. And what I think was really critical is that actually we not only sort of altered the scope of the project, pivoted in a different direction to deliver that trading model, but we actually still managed to deliver it on time and within the scope of the budget that we actually had. So it was a real achievement.

Question 4. 

I mean, I think the biggest impact for us is really looking ahead It's, it's really being able to work with SEI I think in terms of not just this current model that we've implemented and the level of integration, but how can we deepen that relationship? 

What other opportunities are there for us to think about the services we provide our client, the technology that SEI have got available to us and the partnerships that you have and whether or not we can leverage those in the future. I think that's critically important to the long-term or the longevity of this relationship. I think the other thing for us still is now we're kind of moving into that BAU environment. How do we redeploy our IT resource internally to kind of achieve some of those strategic objectives, which we've laid out in the original business case around client facing technology and the tools that we think we need to deliver that differentiates the way and proposition to some of our peers. They're some of the sort of things that we will start to focus now we focus on now that we move out of project mode.