‘It’s all too easy to end up in the realm of bolt-ons and fripperies’
I recently came across a YouTube review of my favourite restaurant in London. Since I know the place so well, I fast-forwarded to the closing remarks. I was delighted to see a score of 9.5 out of 10 awarded.
The food was duly praised (I heartily recommend the steak-and-kidney pie, by the way). So was the service. But what appeared to hit the spot most decisively was the fact that this establishment has barely changed in centuries.
The venue in question is Rules, which was founded in 1798. You may have seen it in an episode of Downton Abbey or in the James Bond film Spectre, in which M, Q and Moneypenny assemble there to discuss why 007 has gone rogue.
Today, generally speaking, pretty much everything at Rules is much as it was at the dawn of the 18th century. Needless to say, the most glaring exception is the price list.
Would an investment platform garner rave reviews if it were virtually the same now as when it was launched? I sincerely doubt it. In our game, frankly, it’s unwise to stand still even for a year, let alone for a decade or more.
Yet this brings us to a vital point. The trick that Rules has managed to pull off – and the challenge that every platform faces – is to remain successful without losing the essence of what made it good in the first place.
Losing sight of the basics
For a platform, in my view, the starting point must always be a recognition of fundamental purpose. As I’ve written before, this can be summarised as follows: to look after people’s money, protect it, grow it and then give it back.
What might endanger this noble goal over the long run? Perhaps the simplest way of framing the issue is to think of it as a case of ever more complications increasingly obscuring the basics.
By way of illustration, imagine a client wants to get a better understanding of what a platform is truly capable of in terms of functionality. Now is an excellent time to encourage exactly that, given that geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty is compelling many investors to take a closer interest in their portfolios.
I would strongly suggest repeatedly posing a couple of highly pertinent questions in the course of such a deep dive. They should help reveal whether change has been positive and, indeed, whether it was even necessary to begin with.
First, does a function actually work as one might expect? In other words, does it sit comfortably alongside other features with regard to facility, familiarity, integration and so on? Or does it seem like a bolt-on, an afterthought, a square peg bashed into in a round hole?
Second, does a function genuinely improve the overall experience of platform use? In other words, does it add value? Or is it the stuff of bells-and-whistles fripperies – an example of style over substance?
Translating innovation into outcomes
It’s all too easy to end up in the realm of bolt-ons and fripperies. They’re near-unavoidable by-products of near-relentless technological progress and the frenzied race that accompanies it.
By way of illustration, check out your smartphone. If you can sincerely claim to use every single app that clutters up screen after screen after screen – well, you’re a more devoted soul than I am. I would dare to guess that at least half of those icons have never felt a fingertip.
Similarly, many platforms are crammed full of years’ worth – and maybe even decades’ worth – of alleged innovations that don’t really accomplish a great deal. The result is often an unavailing hodgepodge of add-ons representing various stages of tech evolution – or, worse still, a complete and utter mess.
Now, I’m not saying innovation is bad. Quite the contrary: I regard it as imperative. But I do believe it should be implemented with some sort of overarching objective in mind rather than in the hope that everything will somehow cling together and users will be conveniently blinded by sheer variety and “noise”.
In my opinion, change for change’s sake rarely turns out especially well. It’s usually no more than a façade, if not a cunning little con. Ultimately, what matters is change that can play a role in delivering even better service and even better outcomes.
Without in any way implying I should receive a complementary steak-and-kidney pie or two in return for a spot of free advertising, I feel this is the ideal that Rules has managed to fulfil over time. When all is said and done, it’s also the ideal that platforms should strive for.
