Existing relationships are biggest threat to Orion
Specifically, Orion’s Redtail Technology enables financial advisors to archive correspondence with prospects and clients – turning increased regulation into a tailwind for the company. Redtail has “north of 50%” market share in the CRM financial advice market, but also many competitors.
We also heard that core clients are unlikely to “churn out” of Orion in response to the challenging macroenvironment due to the high costs of doing so and because RIAs are unlikely to cut services that are critical to their day-to-day operations. “When the market is down, HiddenLevers is up. A CRM you’re not going to cut, because then how do I talk to my clients? How do I store all my e-mails? You’re never going to cut that,” the specialist said. Conversely, there could be an opportunity for Orion to grow its service offering through bolt-on acquisitions.
Relative weak spots for Orion suggested by the expert include its slowness to act on the growing trend of tax-loss harvesting, direct indexing and personalised indexing. “They do have some capabilities around that, but I don’t think that they’ve done a good enough job of democratising that for everybody,” they said. The specialist also praised Orion’s client portal but questioned whether its financial planning software was delivering a “quintessential” experience.
The Interview also discussed Altruist, a new competitor in the space which is “significantly cheaper”. However, “what they’re able to offer for that third of the price is probably a quarter of the value, if not less”, we were told. Orion’s biggest challenge is in-house, the specialist noted. “It’s not the competitors, it’s, again, how do they balance these enterprise relationships, their largest invest RIA clients acquiring their other Orion clients? How do they navigate that?”
Meanwhile, as the company continues to grow in size, more opportunities to build out its offering are likely to emerge. The difficult part here is prioritising advisors’ most important needs vs those which they may not think they need, but which could enhance their operations.
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The information used in compiling this document has been obtained by Third Bridge from experts participating in Forum Interviews. Third Bridge does not warrant the accuracy of the information and has not independently verified it. It should not be regarded as a trade recommendation or form the basis of any investment decision.
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