Perhaps it’s no wonder then that people are asking if today’s platforms are still up to the job.

Naturally, I’d say they are. But you might want to know why.

Twenty years ago, the idea was to provide advisers and planners with a common set of services to put their clients’ assets in one place, enabling them to save time, reduce costs and create a better experience for their clients.

This requirement remains. When we ask advisers what they want they always say: “Just stick to the knitting. Continue to provide a cheap and simple platform that enables us to get stuff done.”

However, naturally, there’s a need to keep moving, to develop and meet changing requirements, but this is where not all platforms get it right.

Having seen Nucleus through all stages of growth I can tell you subscale is hard running a platform. As an example, if you’d asked me 15 years ago how many individual processes we would have – I would have guessed 50, rather than the 850 we have today. If you’d asked how many data quality measures we would measure daily, I would have said: “What’s data quality?!”

Platforms need to scale in order to deliver the efficiency they promise. We run hundreds of operational processes, with hundreds of data quality points, and last year we processed 20m client account orders. We’ve also handled 150,000 calls, and 665,000 written correspondence in 2022.

This is a scale game and it’s the scale that drives the automation, and the automation ultimately lowers the cost to serve.

But to provide this scale you need the right technology at the right time

There are, in my view, two types of technology. The trick is to use the right type of technology for the right problem.

Agile technology is all about working in small teams to innovate, solve problems and create valuable incremental improvements for the user. It’s all about rapid development, deploying quickly and adapting to new challenges.

Then there’s waterfall technology, which is all about big system issues: terms like cyber security, auditability, cost of maintenance, resilience and cost efficiency are key here.

There’s an art to this and it’s about trying to use the right technology at the right time. For example, you should use agile technologies for challenges close to the customer. Using waterfall to build the front-end experience, for example, would lead to disaster.

Waterfall technologies on the other hand are best for scale and repeatable processes. Using agile techniques to build core regulatory systems of record can also lead to disaster.

But not all platforms do this. They either outsource completely, which means they have little control over development and little opportunity to differentiate themselves from any other platform using the same back end – or do it all themselves in house, which is costly and brings scale and support challenges.

A hybrid model

So what’s the solution? We have a set of base technologies by FNZ and Bravura that do that the big system stuff at scale. On top of that, our in-house teams work closely with advisers to develop what they ask for.

Having that layer on top that gives us independence from the underlying platform which is crucially important. We have the control and flexibility to respond to users’ changing needs. And the scale to execute.

This hybrid model has enabled us to make giant leaps forward in terms of integration. We’re all aware that connectivity is broadly terrible across the industry. We’ve created a modern API providing deep transactional data and, increasingly, two-way interactions that gives us the ability to connect to advisers’ practice management systems.

We’ve also developed a huge number of API connections – in fact, more people use us via APIs than our platform interface. This is key now but will be in the future when it comes to replatforming: being able to control the front end minimises the impact on the adviser and their clients.

Lastly data. Platforms are big databases ultimately the more a platform can provide data it can help advisers run their businesses – especially in light of the Consumer Duty. Every user should be able to use their clients’ data to help them deliver an exceptional service.

Advisers still need support with these elements – both now and in the future – and platforms are perfectly placed to help them achieve this. If they get it right.

The ones that do will be here for another 20 years. It’s knowing how to adapt and thrive that’s key.