LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Jun 15, 2015) - AdventConnect - Advent Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADVS), a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, today commenced its annual AdventConnect conference taking place through June 17, 2015 at the Wynn Las Vegas. More than 1,000 attendees from across the investment and wealth management industry are gathering to exchange best practices, discuss new technologies, and preview the latest innovations from Advent.
AdventConnect 2015 offers three days of hands-on learning labs, product previews, expert panel discussions, networking opportunities, and entertainment. Conference attendees will hear from Advent experts and other technology and financial services industry leaders, as well as motivational guest speaker Shawn Achor, a New York Times bestselling author of Before Happiness (2013) and The Happiness Advantage (2010).
The Black Diamond® Wealth Platform Makes Its Debut
On the heels of last year's unveiling and this year's rollout of the new Black Diamond® investor experience, Advent today showcased its next generation Black Diamond® wealth platform. The next generation platform which has been dubbed "BD3" by clients and the development team, as it represents the third generation of the Black Diamond® platform, has been a multi-month effort to redesign and reinvent Black Diamond® to go beyond its roots in performance reporting. Underscored by an all-new advisor experience, firm-level dashboards and enhanced integrations, today's introduction solidifies the transformation of Black Diamond® into a full-featured wealth management platform that integrates portfolio management, reporting, client communications, and rebalancing in a single, holistic cloud platform. The platform will also be complemented by the new Black Diamond® Link enhanced integration program which provides deep, bi-directional workflow integrations with complementary advisory solutions.
The new wealth platform, the culmination of a completely re-engineered back-end technology platform and front-end user interface for both advisors and investors, is the most comprehensive Black Diamond® technology upgrade since the 2010 launch of BlueSky and is slated for release later this year following a beta program beginning in Q3.
"Many advisors today provide much more than investment guidance and often the foundation of their conversations with clients focus on total net worth, income generation, goal setting, planning, and how to protect accumulated wealth," said Dave Welling, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Black Diamond. "It was critical that we evolve beyond our roots in dynamic performance reporting to illustrate a total view of wealth as well as provide a platform that can support the broader narrative that advisors are having with their clients. The platform embodies our ongoing effort to empower advisors and wealth managers to revolutionize and revitalize the dialogue with their clients and to clearly demonstrate their value."
"The Black Diamond® wealth platform gives us another means to communicate and collaborate that fits our high-touch philosophy," said Chris Whiting, Chief Operating Officer, Moneta Group. "As technology advances, people will expect this capability, especially the next generation. We're happy to see how the platform has evolved to enable advisors to interact with their clients whether or not they're together."
New Advisor Experience: Improved Workflow, Increased Efficiency
Extending the recent overhaul of the online investor experience to the advisor experience, the Black Diamond® wealth platform, focuses on important improvements to advisor workflows in order to increase productivity, from client onboarding and portfolio rebalancing to preparation for client meetings and presentations. Advisors will enjoy a fresh look and feel with enhanced flexibility to customize their experience and their clients' reports. Both advisors and operations staff will also benefit from proactive, in-platform alerts and views designed to help keep them on track with important work that needs attention. Clients will experience improved flexibility to support multiple, unique branding and reporting needs of different teams typically found at large wealth management enterprises.
Also new to the Black Diamond® wealth platform is the ability for advisors to present a client's Total Wealth View, providing clients with greater transparency via a single, comprehensive net worth view based on aggregation of daily-reconciled data, held away assets, manual assets as well as liabilities. The customizable total wealth view is presented interactively through a new capability called "presentation mode." Presentation mode will simplify client presentations by providing the capability to pull content together from Black Diamond®, other advisor technology as well as proprietary content developed in MS Office applications which streamlines the clutter of sharing multiple spreadsheets, slides, and PDF documents on screen or via email.
"Our goal is to empower Black Diamond® clients to better illustrate how they can help investors reach their goals through a digital experience that is as rich as the dialogue of in-person meetings," added Welling.
Black Diamond has significantly advanced on its mission to enable advisors to run their businesses wherever and however they prefer -- and for their clients to be able to do the same. The new Black Diamond® wealth platform uses the latest in HTML5 programming with "mobile-first" responsive design so that it can now be used in traditional web browsers or via tablets, phones, and other mobile devices.
Black Diamond® Link: Solving the Integration Puzzle
The Black Diamond® Integration Network, announced earlier this year, delivers extensive integrations with workflows across dozens of advisor technology companies including 14 new ones just this year. The new Black Diamond® Link program takes solving the technology integration puzzle a step further. It will deliver a bundle of deep bi-directional, workflow-oriented integrations between Black Diamond® and industry-leading financial planning, CRM, analytics, and proposal generation solutions in a bundle that offers a range of choices and that are easy to purchase, implement, and use. Several industry solutions providers that are part of the Black Diamond® Integration Network have already signed formal agreements to become members of the Black Diamond® Link program, including:
- Financial Planning: MoneyGuidePro™
- Proposal Generation and Analytics: AdvisoryWorld
- CRM: Salentica, Concenter™ Services (XLR8), Junxure Cloud®, Advisors Assistant®, Redtail Technology, Inc.
"Advisors are looking for a partner they trust to bring together different technologies into one platform that simplifies the experience for their advisors and their clients," said Welling. "The goal of Black Diamond® Link is to provide advisors access to best-in-breed technology through one seamlessly integrated platform. We're fortunate to be able to collaborate with other well-respected technology firms as well as successful advisory clients to create solutions that support their evolving businesses as the industry continues to experience change."
About Advent
Over the last 30 years of industry change, our core mission to help our clients focus on their unique strategies and deliver exceptional investor service has never wavered. With unparalleled precision and ahead-of‐the-curve solutions, we've helped over 4,300 firms in nearly 50 countries from established global institutions to small start-up practices -- to grow their business and thrive. Advent technology helps firms minimize risk, work together seamlessly, and discover new opportunities in a constantly evolving world. Together with our clients, we are shaping the future of investment management. For more information on Advent products visit http://www.advent.com.
About Black Diamond
An independent business group of Advent Software, Black Diamond provides investment advisors and wealth managers with a cloud-based portfolio management platform offering aggregation, customizable reporting and rebalancing combined with fully outsourced daily reconciliation and data management service. With innovative technology backed by exceptional service, Black Diamond frees advisors to focus on serving clients and growing their business. More than 650 advisory firms have chosen Black Diamond to help manage more than $300 billion in assets. Learn more at http://www.advent.com/blackdiamond.
Advent, Advent Software, Black Diamond, and the Advent and logo composite are registered marks of Advent Software, Inc. All other company names or marks mentioned herein are those of their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements
Any forward-looking statements included in this press release, such as statements regarding anticipated products, services, enhancements or availability and features thereof, growth and financial projections, and strategies or plans of management for future operations involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the successful development, timing, anticipated features, functionality, benefits and market acceptance of new products, services and enhancements, the impact of initiatives by competitors, continued sales of existing products and services, continued uncertainties and fluctuations in the financial markets and economic conditions and other risks detailed in Advent's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and its annual report on Form 10-K, copies of which may be obtained by visiting Advent's Investor Relations Web site at www.advent.com. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Advent's products or services should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements including any financial, product or other guidance, whether as a result of events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.