Guide to Future-Proofing Your Law Firm ProcessesHow technology is changing the way lawyers win new businessStreamlining the prospect marketing process for asset management

Holistic guide to acquiring new clients and growing accounts

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3:

Chapter 4: Chapter 5: Chapter 6:

www.qorusdocs.com2

Introduction

What’s wrong with the prospect marketing process?

The solution - empower the sales team and give the marketing team control

A tool that people will actually use

How Qorus Software can help

Conclusion

www.qorusdocs.com3

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction

www.qorusdocs.com4

Global assets under management will surpass USD100 trillion by 2020, according to PwC’s recentpublication Asset Management 2020: A Brave New World. That’s nearly a 60% increase from the USD64trillion in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of almost 6%.

Despite this favorable environment, asset management firms are continuously forced to review theirbusiness models in light of rising client expectations, increased regulation and the ongoing focus onoperational efficiencies.

Acquiring new business under these conditions is not easy. Growing client-side intermediation fromconsultants and advisors and an increase in RFP-driven mandates are putting pressure on sales,marketing and bid-support teams who are already stretched. Responding to RFPs and creatingproposals and pitch books takes a lot of time, as does ensuring that all content is approved andcompliant (not to mention correctly branded). Tight deadlines only increase the risk of mistakes beingmade and missed.

With the right technology, however, firms can streamline the internal processes related to winning newbusiness – reducing the cost of responding to RFPs and creating proposals and pitch books. Automationcan offer firms a substantial competitive edge.

In this guide we will explore the need to improve the current prospect marketing process, the solutions,and how to master this new technology.

www.qorusdocs.com5

Chapter 2: What’s wrong with the prospect marketing process?

www.qorusdocs.com6

Chances are, your marketing team works pretty hard. They have to ensure that your firm stands outfrom the competition – a tough job when there probably isn’t that much that really differentiates youfrom similar firms. Maintaining the firm’s website, creating and updating collateral, managing dailymarketing activities and bringing in a steady supply of appropriate leads is time-consuming.

Ad hoc sales support adds to the pressure - when the sales team needs content, they often need itimmediately. Bottlenecks in the marketing and compliance departments are frustrating and could resultin sales creating or amending collateral themselves.

Chapter 2: What’s wrong with the prospect marketing process?

Chapter 2: What’s wrong with the prospect marketing process?

www.qorusdocs.com7

1. Collateral is difficult to control

Consistent formatting and branding is vital when it comes to client and prospect-facingcollateral such as market reviews/outlooks, product profiles and pitch books. Subtlechanges in branding and messaging need to be applied across all content. This newcontent must then be rolled out to the business as quickly as possible and outdatedversions abandoned – a tricky task when busy sales people save templates and versionson their PCs and laptops.

Performance charts and disclosures contained in pitch books and product profiles arejust as difficult to control. With such content continually changing, slides have to beconstantly updated and reviewed for compliance.

Without direct control over many of the underlying templates, marketing is at adisadvantage. Changes take too long, with IT sometimes needing to get involved. Often,the result is that marketers must resort to significant manual efforts or prioritize agrowing list of change requests.

All of these processes are drawn out even further by the fact that the fund teams andportfolio managers that supply critical analysis, commentary and oversight are busy andvery difficult to pin down for input.

Chapter 2: What’s wrong with the prospect marketing process?

www.qorusdocs.com8

2. Sales relies on marketing too much

Without a logically ordered and regularly updated content ‘library’, the sales team is reliant onmarketing for the latest content and positioning. Even the most basic of pitch books could requiremarketing to assemble them.

Enabling the sales team to help themselves to approved, compliant content would streamline theprocess and make the entire firm more productive. Intelligent templates that retained their formattingwould reduce the time spent realigning proposals and other collateral.

3. Compliance gets sticky

All documents leaving your firm must be compliant. But keeping track of which content has beenreviewed, and ensuring that only approved content can be accessed is difficult. Version control canbecome a nightmare, and waiting for collateral to be checked creates a bottleneck, increasing the needfor additional resources to meet demand.

4. Specialist reporting software is difficult to use

Many firms have some form of reporting software, but it’s often not very business user friendly.‘Technical’ software that requires a lot of training and IT support has low adoption rates and is inflexiblein responding to on-demand sales needs.

www.qorusdocs.com9

Chapter 3: The solution –empower the sales team and give the marketing team control

Chapter 3: The solution –empower the sales team and give the marketing team control

www.qorusdocs.com10

Asset managers need to build trust with investors, and the only real way to do that is by creatingengaging content that effectively communicates the firm’s strengths and intellect specific to themandate. Using the right proposal management technology can help, providing a central repository ofup-to-date, compliant content. Sales can use this content to generate accurate first drafts of pitch books,proposals and reviews that can be personalized for each client.

Ensuring that documents retain their formatting, even when it is augmented with supporting materialsor typed in manually, reduces the risk of typos and mistakes and creates a sleek, professional look thatmeets brand guidelines. Locking content ensures that no unauthorized changes can be made, reducingthe risk of non-compliant information being shared.

‘Guided cart’ wizards can be added to ensure that all mandatory information is included in proposalsand pitch books. This process is similar to shopping online – users can select which available contentthey’d like to use. For example, they could choose from a selection of investment strategies, funds, teambios and supporting articles.

Chapter 4: A tool that people will actually use

www.qorusdocs.com11

www.qorusdocs.com12

Proposal and document automation software can help your firm become more productive and look moreprofessional, and it can increase job satisfaction. Marketing teams will get to spend less – or even no –time on manually assembling proposals, as the sales team can simply pull reusable material from anapproved and up-to-date content library. Both the sales and marketing teams will have more time tocome up with creative ideas or strategies for the next sales pitch.

Many firms might already have proposal automation software, but if it’s complicated and requireslengthy training, user adoption will be low and return on investment difficult to justify. Documents thatshould be easy to pull together will take a lot longer because staff will be trying to remember how to usethe software. This is frustrating and can result in people doing it manually anyway.

Software that’s easy to use and familiar requires much less training and is more likely to be used,especially by the busy sales team.

It will reduce the time spent on manual tasks and processes, help sales and marketing teams stick to yourfirm’s corporate branding standards and ensure accuracy and consistency of information in client-facingdocuments and reports.

When it comes to choosing the right automation software tool, ensure that your software is user-friendlyand you’ll save money and valuable staff time.

Chapter 4: A tool that people will actually use

www.qorusdocs.com13

Chapter 5: How Qorus Software can help

Chapter 5: How Qorus Software can help

www.qorusdocs.com14

Qorus believes that software should be intuitive and easy to use. Which is why our solutions are built onwell-known Microsoft platforms like Word, PowerPoint and SharePoint.

Qorus Breeze Proposals is designed to help organizations create custom pitch books and proposalscontaining up-to-date performance, commentary and strategies.

It offers:

• Total control for marketing and compliance teams over material used by sales.

• Integrated compliance review workflows, i.e. when people have to provide content or input, they haveto follow the process, ensuring that documents aren’t forgotten about and can’t be changed withoutpermission from marketing and compliance.

• Integrated commentary management workflows, i.e. if an asset manager is asked to providecommentary on this quarters’ drivers and how they will affect funds and investments, they will be sentautomatic email reminders so that marketing doesn’t have to chase up anything.

• Modern but familiar (Microsoft Word and Power Point) tools so that people can use programs theyknow and don’t have to try remember what they did last time or waste time recreating standarddocuments.

• A complete client and prospect communication solution. Aside from proposals and pitch books, it alsoautomates fact sheets, client reviews, Q&A pairs for RFP responses and a host of othercommunications.

Chapter 5: How Qorus Software can help

www.qorusdocs.com15

Our mission is to help organizations reduce the cost, time and effort required to generate customizeddocuments – all while improving the quality and accuracy of content. Our software also greatly reducesthe potential for human error and formatting issues, improves adherence to corporate guidelines andconsistency in branding and style, helping you to create great looking documents in a fraction of the time.

Chapter 6: Conclusion

www.qorusdocs.com16

Chapter 6: Conclusion

www.qorusdocs.com17

To stay ahead in the competitive world of asset management, your firm’s proposal creation process needsto be more effective and efficient.

An easy-to-use proposal automation software tool will ensure that your sales and marketing teamsproduce high quality, personalized and compliant collateral in the quickest and most effortless way.

Costs will come down, quality will go up and it’ll be easier to win and keep loyal clients.

Thank You!

www.qorusdocs.com18

Learn More About Qorus SoftwareQorus Software is a global provider of document and proposal automation solutions for

Microsoft™ Office® and SharePoint®. The company helps organizations significantly reduce costs, as well as the time and effort required to generate customized documents,

while improving the quality and accuracy of content.

Contact us to learn more about how we work with Financial Services Companies.Marketing@qorusdocs.com

Request a Demo Register for our Newsletter

Visit our Blog

Thank You!

www.qorusdocs.com19

Thank you for downloading!

For more information visit: www.qorusdocs.com / www.qorusdocs.com/asset-management-software