Industry-first technology will help advisors address clients’ more complex needs, says SLGI Asset Management Inc. president
This month, Sun Life Global Investments broke new ground by being Canada’s first asset manager to offer the xSpace virtual reality experience to advisors. And like countless other moves that challenge the status quo, it was inspired by a growing industry need.
“We’re seeing a huge shift toward holistic advice – helping clients with retirement and estate planning,” says Oricia Smith, president, SLGI Asset Management Inc. and senior vice president, Investment Solutions at Sun Life Canada.
“We’re having a lot of interesting conversations with advisors across Canada as the demand from clients have changed.”
Not just solving for returns
For years, Canada’s wealth industry has been transitioning from an emphasis on investing to the broader work of comprehensive financial planning. That movement gained even greater momentum in the past few years as COVID-19 lockdowns sharpened people’s focus on mortality and their life purpose.
“Advisors are no longer just solving for returns for clients,” Smith says. “They have to think about longevity risk, given people are living longer, or how clients can efficiently draw down their capital in retirement, or how they can help clients efficiently transfer their estate to their children or to charity.”
For many advisors, that represents a geometric increase in complexity. From focusing on traditional funds, ETFs and portfolio products, they have to raise their knowledge base to include segregated funds with estate planning benefits, insurance products for tax-minimization strategies, and accumulation annuities that create lifetime income and help mitigate longevity risk.
Sun Life Global Investments is already one of the industry leaders in retirement and estate planning solutions, Smith says, with a platform that includes both investment and insurance-based products. But to help avoid overwhelming advisors with information, it needed to take a tech-driven approach – going beyond the two-dimensional world of printed pages and LCD screens to one where advisors can engage meaningfully with high volumes of complex information.
With the new VR-enabled platform, advisors can understand Sun Life Global Investments' solutions in a more immersive way. As Smith describes it, the VR space was built with different zones, including a section around services and tools, a section where advisors can quickly connect with wholesalers, a learning area with numerous different opportunities to earn CE credits, and one portion devoted to thought leadership and news.
“Advisors have access to email and other forms of communication, but those are very crowded,” she says. “This space allows use to really organize things differently, with a focus on the advisor and the client journey.”
The xSpace experience is now open to all advisors across Canada, both inside and outside the Sun Life network. Smith says Sun Life Global Investments is releasing advisor-targeted communications to build awareness of the experience while populating it with webinars and other informative content. Beyond advisors, she says the firm’s distribution team is also leveraging the platform as they sit down with advisors to discuss new concepts and solutions.
“It’s great to be the first in the industry to create this space. We’re striving to be as forward-looking and innovative as we can to meet the needs of advisors,” Smith says. “This platform will allow us to engage differently with advisors, understanding what matters most to them and their clients, and it’s going to evolve over time.”
