The family office journey toward operational excellence - Technology and talent considerations present challenges and opportunities

As a leading provider of accounting, tax and consulting services, RSM family office professionals develop multigenerational relationships by providing the right solutions to help sustain your family’s vision across your operating business, your investment structure and your family office.

In today’s competitive business landscape, family offices face tremendous challenges and opportunities to maximize efficiency and productivity across the enterprise amid constant change and uncertainty.

Achieving operational excellence is of primary concern to family offices and their many stakeholders as they consider the latest trends and strategies to evolve their current operating model.

RSM recently engaged in an interactive discussion with more than 500 family office executives, family members and their advisors, who provided valuable feedback regarding their collective progress toward achieving operational excellence. We gleaned the following key insights:

Insight #1: Family offices are on a similar trajectory in achieving operational excellence.

Family offices stand to benefit from holding strategic conversations to identify methods and resources to create efficiencies within the enterprise. In reflecting on their current state of efficiency, an overwhelming number (93%) of family office respondents admitted they do not have a fully optimized operating model.

Insight #2: Technology leads the list of challenges affecting family office operations.

To keep pace with the rapidly advancing business environment, many family offices are turning to technologies to glean data-driven insights, and also focusing on internal teams to leverage these insights to drive faster and more informed decision-making. It was no surprise to learn that for the majority of our family office respondents, data and reporting (41.4%) and digital excellence and integrated technologies (41.1%) stand to have the greatest impact on their operations.
 

Insight #3: Finding and developing talent presents the greatest staffing opportunity.

Post-pandemic workforce trends are creating distinct challenges for every business, including family offices. This sentiment was confirmed by 38% of family office respondents who said talent-related concerns will have a significant impact on their operations over the next 12 months. More specifically, nearly an equal number of family office respondents rated identifying and hiring the right talent in the market (21.2%) and upskilling or reskilling existing talent (21.0%) as the most pressing challenges they face in the coming year.

If you would like to hear more about operational excellence, please look to the RSM website and upcoming webcasts by RSM that discuss this topic.