Improved data consistency and operation

NRP now has one set of consistent analytics between NRP and its growing network of advisors. Data consistency, in turn, drives efficiency gains.

Due diligence advanced

NRP and its advisors better meet quarterly due diligence requirements, as fund information is received by advisors, who can review and inform clients about changes to funds.

Extensibility

The proprietary CRM system with Pervasive Data Integrator can take on more information volume and bring more advisors into the NRP network.

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NRP chooses Echo Lane, Pervasive to improve managing of fund information via Salesforce

 San Juan Capistrano, CA-based National Retirement Partners (NRP) is a growing retirement management company that offers over 15,000 funds from a number of major institutions such as Fidelity and ING. In total, the NRP network provides advisory services for over 5,000 retirement plans with assets over $60 billion. Along with its growing network of some 450 advisory firms and individual advisors, NRP needed a more efficient way of managing fund information and commission tracking, as well as meet compliance in an improved way.

 Enter Echo Lane. Echo Lane is a system integrator (SI) whose methodology has enabled clients to realize accelerated ROI based on improved user adoption and compressed implementation time lines, tailored to meet unique business requirements.

Dissuaded by the high costs and lack of extensibility of many data integration offerings, Echo Lane chose Pervasive Data Integrator™ to meet the customer’s key requirement to help develop a one-way data transfer/aggregation process to a customized Salesforce-powered CRM that contains up-to-date fund analytics, helps meets quarterly due diligence requirements and allows for easy-to-use commission tracking. The new system has even proven to be a NRP selling point to potential advisors.

Government, ERISA compliance

NRP sought to improve its ability to meet government regulations and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which require quarterly fund analysis on retirement plans including 401k and 403b plans. The company also wanted to improve its commission tracking and reporting, as well as subsidiary broker/dealer processes, trading and money movement.

Cost

Discussions with various data integration vendors resulted in selecting Pervasive. "We wanted top-of-the-line integration, but we needed a cost-effective solution," said Echo Lane Lead Consultant Lisa Arrington, "We didn’t want to bring something on board that resulted in needing more personnel, or took existing employees away from other work."

Pervasive Data Integrator drives data feed into Salesforce

NRP, working with Echo Lane and Pervasive, created a highly customized solution on top of Salesforce to deliver pre-built configuration and integration to advisors in the field. NRP-certified financial analysts and a proprietary due diligence system feed the fund lineup for a plan by client or by account, and an advisor pulls analytics quarterly. The feed into Salesforce is driven by Pervasive Data Integrator. NRP Senior Vice President of Operations Adam Sokolic described the approach, "We have Salesforce and a home-built financial services application with a lot of data for the funds offered. Pervasive brings the data into Salesforce through a custom object called ‘Funds’. We also have an update commission feed.

In Salesforce, agents receive private logins to monitor and track the information." Pervasive also allows the aggregation of commissions from NRP’s broker/dealer subsidiary to a plan level. Easy-to-track commission dashboards for advisors are available. What was previously a manual process using Excel worksheets has now been expanded to gain the most from automation, including forecasting by potential trades. Some 100 fields have been mapped, with data moving from the homegrown financial application to Salesforce. Lisa Arrington said, "On a nightly basis, data is moved into SQL Server to a Web server, then moves via Pervasive Data Integrator into Salesforce via Web services." There have been "no bugs, no issues with the maps and we can create a single map or process and clone it out across 75 separate organizations."

Initial deployment occurred in less than a week. Echo Lane’s deep knowledge of Salesforce and development of a comprehensive custom platform specifically targeted towards NRP’s unique requirements, gives members access to real-time data where they need it and when they need it, 24/7.

General Overview: process flows for daily updates and commission files

Efficiency, value delivered to NRP advisory network by
Echo Lane, Pervasive

NRP with SI Echo Lane sought a cost-effective data integration solution to meet its proprietary CRM requirements. With Pervasive Data Integrator, NRP and its advisor network have improved due diligence efforts and commission tracking. Efficiency and other value gains allow the company to further its brokerage business. NRP advisors can more quickly and accurately distinguish a profitable fund from one in decline and adjust accordingly using NRP brokerage services.

By making life a little easier for its advisors, it makes life easier for NRP. The company estimates that 70% of its advisors will move to the new CRM soon. The agile CRM system is also a selling point to other firms—NRP said that two new companies joined the NRP network based on the system alone.

NRP Senior Vice President of Operations Adam Sokolic sums up his company’s Pervasive experience, "The things we like most about Pervasive’s solution are the great price and that it just flat out works–and works smoothly, quickly and effectively. Our network is made up of many individual agents that all have different methods and working styles. Pervasive integration allows us to take that data, process it and analyze it in one format rather than a dozen."

Echo Lane, as trusted advisor, plans greater customization for NRP

Looking ahead, NRP is moving toward an Interactive Information Exchange and greater customization. Data will move from a staging server to a hosting server, allowing greater Web-based approaches to sharing information with third parties. NRP will continue to work with Echo Lane as their trusted advisor for continued development and customization, always focused on getting the job done right.