Technology Integration and Our Growing Expectations

Everywhere we turn, there’s technology. Some we need, some we don’t. Some, we can’t imagine living without. We’ve all heard the stats. Today, technology is ingrained in our everyday life. But that wasn’t always the case.

Remember when ….
My mom, who is nearing 70, tells me about getting her first family TV when she was six or seven years old, and about having to place phone calls through an operator. Now, that same woman streams her favorite shows on her tablet and can’t imagine a world where her cell phone doesn’t have apps.

When my older sister was in high school, I remember watching her stalk the mailbox anxiously awaiting our TV Guide magazine.  Without that, how else could she possibly know if this week’s episode of whatever show she was obsessed with at the time was new or a rerun? God forbid she’d be forced to miss it due to something as irritating as a family or school commitment. And remember the agony (oh the agony!) of waiting for your dial-up AOL connection? Forget about it!  And we have. Literally. Thanks to the power of technologies like fiber-optic internet, smart TVs, DVRs, mobile devices, Google and social media … and the list goes on.

But Now …
Today, the adoption rate of these tools and technologies, particularly in the U.S., is staggeringly high (for instance, it’s reported that two new users join Facebook every second). Why? Because we know (or at least we trust) that by doing so, we’re making our lives easier, becoming more efficient, adding convenience—you name it, and technology can probably offer some type of solution.

And now many technologies—and even some common items we normally don’t associate with technology—are taking the concept of ease of use and convenience one step further on a mission to simplify our day-to-day. In this entertaining interview with MIT Media Lab Instructor David Rose, we learn that a team of pretty smart people are dreaming up ways to embed “app-like” functionality into the things we use every day, such as a cap to a pill bottle that reminds us to take our daily medication.

Other innovations, like music-streaming service Spotify and activity and health tracker Fitbit, let you sign-in to your account using the credentials you supplied to create an entirely different account, such as your Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts. Technologies we use in our personal life every day no longer just talk to us—they talk to each other. This concept of integration is elevating our expectations for how we interact with technology in every setting.

For Tomorrow…
Your business should be no exception. Platform integration has been a buzz phrase as advisors increasingly turn to technology solutions to meet their clients’ growing digital expectations, as we just discussed,  and to increase their own productivity and efficiency as their own wants and needs evolve with the times.

At eMoney, we work with key technology partners to deliver powerful integration options for financial advisors.  By engaging some of the industry’s most prominent software providers offering a wide array of valuable services, our advisors can easily access their clients’ complete financial picture from one secure location.

As we prepare to release our latest software update  later this year and incorporate additional data integrations with some of the industry’s best, we believe comprehensive wealth management technology, like many others, is one that advisors just can’t afford to live without.