"Professional demarcation can and often does result in financial planners, accountants and lawyers’ not being aware of what each other is advising"
A family or companies trusted professional advisors are vital for the growth and dispersal of property and business assets in contemporary life. The nature of our rapidly evolving regulatory environment and changing tax laws create this need. This makes it more essential than ever, to enlist the advice of those who make it their livelihood to specialize and remain up to date.
However it is common experience to find that crucial strategic planning decisions are often made inadvertently, as felt needs dictate. Such decisions can have big consequences over time. These decisions include the choice of financial products such as superannuation and insurance as well as the ownership structures chosen for business and investment assets, the protection of assets and the minimization of tax.
Despite this, when might it be helpful to cut your Solicitor, Accountant and Financial Planner loose and delete them from your Christmas card list? Under what circumstances might individuals or company’s consider them counter productive?
Strategic planning is by nature both big picture and proactive. It does not work well where it is limited by professional demarcation, or the strategic initiative in the relationship rests with the client. Unfortunately for clients, coordinated advice is difficult to access, except in the top end of town. Something small to medium sized business owners can rarely entertain. Likewise suburban professionals are limited where they rarely meet clients at the clients premises and are tightly bound to stay within their professional area of advice by industry code of practice. This can and often does result in accountants, financial planners and lawyers’ not being aware of what each other is advising.
Boutique consultancies are now appearing to meet this need. This is partly the result of technologies which allow collaboration between all parties. Individuals with project management experience who are experts in consulting and client services, will often work ‘client side’, and get more involved with ensuring that implementation of the action items does happen on a coordinated and proactive basis. It’s permits a more dynamic liaison where the client and professional advisors all share the same web-based password protected project site. This becomes a common planning and communication centre for the duration of a particular project. e.g. succession planning.
Its main benefit being that group collaboration ensures that all parties know ‘who has the ball’ at any point in time. Operating this way provides high quality outcomes in a much shorter time frame. This in turn leads to significantly greater levels of client and professional satisfaction.
