Gemma Livermore: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Seismic Sessions podcast, where we explore how financial services leaders are driving innovation and enhancing the advisor experience.
I’m Gemma Livermore, Head of FS International Marketing at Seismic. And joining me here as always is my colleague Rachael Rowe, RVP of Global Strategic Accounts. Today we’re diving into seismic shifts shaping the future of enablement in financial services, from its early days to what comes next. And joining us today, [00:01:00] we’ve got two brilliant guests. if I can hand over to you for an introduction.
Jalpa Bhatt: Hi, I’m Jalpa. I am Director of Marketing Technology at Janus Henderson Investors. I’m glad to be here and talking about exciting topic.
Gemma Livermore: Thank you for joining us and Deepika, if you could introduce yourself.
Deepika Sehgal: Yeah, sure. Thank you. I am Deepika Sehgal. I work for Capital Group where I focus on go to market strategy, product innovation, and enablement transformation within the financial services sector. My work is all about making things easier and more personalised, helping firms connect sales, marketing, and compliance teams so that they can work together smoothly. I’m very passionate about making enablement stronger, helping advisor engage better with clients, get trained faster, and drive better business results. I’m excited to be here today to share my thoughts on how enablement has changed over time and where it is going next.
Gemma Livermore: Wonderful. I look forward to digging into that a bit more as we open up the conversation. For those of you that listen regularly will know that we start every [00:02:00] session with the question, what does enabling financial services mean to you? So Jalpa, if I could come to you first?
Jalpa Bhatt: Sure. So in my role of marketing technology, empowering sales and marketing teams with effective tools and resources, that could be around training, that could be around sales pitches, content creation. I. Talk about anything. There’s lots there. I see myself as more of a mediator between business and tech.
Always looking to align business needs and tech advancements that, makes us move faster. as you know, technology’s moving faster, than the industry is. So that’s where enablement plays a huge role.
Gemma Livermore: Amazing. And Deepika, what does it mean to you?
Deepika Sehgal: I totally agree to what Jalpa said, and to me also enabling financial services is all about empowering the people at the heart of industry, be it advisor, client facing teams and support function with the right tools, insights, and content exactly when they need them. So, in a space as complex and [00:03:00] regulated as financial services, enablement means helping advisor cut through the noise. They are expected to stay up to speed on evolving product shifting market condition, and increasingly personalised client needs all while staying compliant. That’s a lot to carry.
So real enablement steps into simplify that complexity. It reduces manual work, break silos and help advisors spend less time searching for the right content and more time building meaningful relationship with the clients. And it also goes beyond tools and template. It’s about creating an entire ecosystem that works behind the scenes to support them, where onboarding is smooth, learning is ongoing and insight flow naturally into their day-to-day conversations. And when done right, it shows advisor feels more confident, clients feel more understood. Firms will more trust, grow asset, and retain their talent. So enablement is just not the support function.
It becomes a strategic driver of business outcomes and a key differentiator in competitive and fast changing market.
Rachael Rowe: [00:04:00] Wow. These are two interesting perspectives, Gemma. I’m looking forward to digging into this in our conversation today, I think if we move to the tremors, and for those of you who know, we try to stay true to the seismic terminology. So, if we kind of begin where we see enablement starting, if I go to you first just picking up on, some of the things that you said in your initial comment, we are really looking now at where the movement began, with regards to enablement.
So where did the term enablement start gaining traction in financial services. And why do you think there was a need to reframe traditional sales and marketing support under this new umbrella?
Jalpa Bhatt: Quite interesting because when I look back several years, within the asset management industry, being around here for, several years, I’ve seen the shift happen quite gradually in the beginning. but it’s taken up a lot in the last few years, mainly around, so dip, I mentioned a few things [00:05:00] like.
We are very highly regulated industry. and then what we are seeing in the last several years, there is a lot of advancement in the technology. Technology that asset management industry is using. Sales and marketing. If you talk about very historically, traditionally very focused on their key skills around selling and around marketing, and then suddenly we move into the digital world, I mean, likes of pandemic did not help it completely, overnight moved people more to the digital world and there is more need for different teams to work in collaboration rather than silos. we are being bombarded with new technology in the market every day. you want to send emails.
There are so many different tools out there that could use to send emails. You wanna create content. There are lots of tools. AI makes it even kind of more. Enabler and challenger, because the more you give it to the sales team, the more there [00:06:00] is like, okay, I’m just a salesperson. I just wanna sell, don’t give me all these different tools.
How do I work with these? And that’s where the enablement kind of really comes in place. ’cause it bridges that gap of what business wants to do, what technology can do to enable these users in terms of whether it’s training, whether it’s kind of giving more personalised experience, whether it’s meeting all the compliance needs, around content production, around regulations.
Around distribution of the content. It, enable, plays a huge role because it helps, salespeople do their jobs properly by saying, okay, this is how you do it. This is where you go. and these are the tools that could help you do that. So, that’s what I’ve seen happening in the past probably five years.
I’ve seen it more and more of the rise of the enablement program within every company.
Gemma Livermore: I love the bit where you said that the sales team said, um, we don’t need more technology, and you’re so right. It’s funny, isn’t it? Because in the [00:07:00] past there was. A thought that to add to your technology stack, added to their workload. And that is what’s been really interesting for me with enablement, is it’s taking away from their workload and enabling people to do more with less.
How did you overcome that issue with the salespeople? How did you convince them that it was going to help them?
Jalpa Bhatt: Quite interesting. so, this is what I believed, and I’m gonna take it back to the days where, we were. Upgrading our Salesforce to Salesforce Lightning from classic, and I needed people to adopt it because with every new technology, adoption is quite key. And you have got traditional salespeople who are too busy writing their notes in their diaries.
And then you have these young salespeople coming in the team who want to do everything in the digital world, where I felt I could. Really make a huge change in terms of the enablement was, honing into these early adopters of the system, listening to the challenges [00:08:00] of the people who do not like technology, but also listening to these, people who really want to adopt a system.
And how do you bridge the two? You get one person to learn from the other. See if you use the technology, this is what you get. and I think that played a key role of using early adopters, using training programs and more personalised. So if it’s a traditional salesperson who doesn’t like using technology, you have to give him.
The benefit of this is what our key phrase was what’s in it for me? If you tell a salesperson what’s in it for them to use the technology, that’s what helps, enabling them to use the technology.
Gemma Livermore: Absolutely. And Deepika, if we come to you now from your go to market and product strategy perspective, what market forces or organisational pain points led to the formation of enablement as a discipline?
Deepika Sehgal: So, when I think about how enablement really started taking shape into financial services, it feels like the result of several waves hitting at [00:09:00] once. So, the first and foremost was advisor Were suddenly facing a flood of complex financial products from traditional offering to newer areas like ESG and digital assets.
It became nearly impossible for them to keep up and let alone feel confident. Speaking to clients about it all and at the same time, they were also stuck using manual processes and just couldn’t keep the pace. They needed real time insights and smarter tools to help them focus more on clients and less on admin work.
Then there was also the growing pressure around compliance. Every client interaction had to be perfectly aligned with the legal and marketing, and that created a clear need for better coordination across teams. And when you add in high advisor turnover. Firms started to see the cracks. Onboarding was inconsistent, ongoing training was lacking, and knowledge was not being transferred effectively.
All of this made one thing very clear. Enablement couldn’t be afterthought anymore. It had to become a real strategy, one that is structured, scalable, and deeply woven into how firm supports their [00:10:00] advisor and build trust with the clients.
Rachael Rowe: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting, we hear that word trust so often in our conversations, because obviously that that is a key currency within financial services and then it applies as much I would say, within the organisation as it does with the customer or the client base. Would, would you agree with that? Let me give that one to Deepika.
Deepika Sehgal: Yes, definitely. Trust is the key. providing the right content at the right time and then being compliant at every time is definitely the trust factors that we are looking for, and it’s the most important part for any organisation.
Gemma Livermore: I‘ve seen that in marketing as well. trust is what you have to build up from the very beginning these days. Because when you’re giving advice, it’s trust that people buy into, and particularly with people rather than just organisations as well, which is why enablement’s so good at enabling the people within the organisation.
And I think that takes us really nicely to the epicentre. And this is where we start to look at the [00:11:00] current state of enablement. So how it stands now, Rachael, over to you.
Rachael Rowe: thank you Gemma and I think Deepika as well, building on what we just talked about in our first little segment there. Let’s Talk about where we are now. So what does modern enablement look like today inside financial institutions are firms getting it right in your opinion, Deepika?
Deepika Sehgal: so today, modern enablement inside financial institution is much more cross-functional than ever before. It brings together sales, marketing, compliance, and technology teams to create a unified advisor and client experience. And nowadays there is a stronger focus on miserable outcomes like a UM growth, client retention, and delivering personalisation at scale.
However, while the intention is there, many organisation are still struggling to fully realise the benefits as highlighted in seismic enablement report, a lot of firms still lack of formal structured enablement strategy. Technology investments have been made, but of. and seamless integration into daily Workflows [00:12:00] remain major barriers. In many cases, marketing is still operating actively responding to the custom content request or supporting manual work streams rather than proactively driving enablement forward. So while progress is definitely happening, there’s still a significant opportunity for firms to operationalise enablement more strategically and embedded deeper into the advisory ecosystem.
Gemma Livermore: Deepika. That’s really interesting and I’d love to turn it to you now, Rachael, because we work closer than ever before as sales marketing. How do you feel that enablement looks as it is now in the epicentre?
Rachael Rowe: Yes. I think that lots of firms understand the importance of breaking down silos within the organisation and really galvanising around the client. there’s a big focus on providing a best. In class client experience. and that’s really where competitive advantage lies in many ways, within financial services because there is so much pressure on fees and there is such a strong regulatory framework, around the [00:13:00] industry.
And I think part of the challenge in achieving that is. Breaking down silos within the organisation, making sure that there are, virtuous feedback loops taking place within the business so that you can understand what is resonating with clients, what efforts are producing most impact for the organisation.
And I think that’s where enablement has a really strong role to play. And we’ve. Come strides, I would say over the last five years or so in terms of being able to demonstrate the ROI of enablement to, industry. And I think that that will only strengthen, as this kind of competitive, battle commences.
Gemma Livermore: Absolutely. And Jalpa, if we turn to you, what do you think are the most urgent gaps or inefficiencies that you’re seeing in enablement today? And where do you think the firms should start to focus next?
Jalpa Bhatt: I would say, I mean, listening to what Deepika was saying, I could relate to a lot of the things that she said and, even Rachael, to your [00:14:00] point, there are definitely silos still there. Over the last few years, there has been, a lot of progress in the enablement strategy that the firms have started to recognise the need for enablement, the benefit for having the enablement strategy and an enablement program, however.
I believe that the amount prioritisation or focus on enablement is not there yet. There are leaders who are leading it. However, there is still, I believe we have a long way to go to not only kill the silos in terms of the operating model of different functions that they have, but also the strategic.
Prioritisation of where the different teams are heading towards, like sales would have their strategic priority and roadmap for what they wanna do. From the sales perspective, we still see with CMOs, marketing heads, they want to move on in their [00:15:00] marketing roadmaps. Same as with technology.
I believe those silos are still there. Enablement. He’s trying to bridge that gap or trying to align all of them. but in my experience, we are not there yet. and it doesn’t help that we bombard, sales team with lots of technologies. So there are a lot of enabling technologies out there for sales and marketing, whether it’s content production or whether it is, Marketing tools. in our firm itself, we have lots of different tools you could use to send an email. Lots of different tools you could use to talk to your client. Lots of different tools you could use for producing the content. however, we are not there yet in terms of how do we align all of that together. How do we have integrated solutions where. What our client is doing in one place and what our sales is doing in the other place. It aligns with what marketing is trying to do in the central. I think we still have gaps there.
Rachael Rowe: That’s really interesting insight. [00:16:00] I, I’d be curious as well, Gemma, just to throw the question onto you in terms of how you are experiencing enablement within marketing.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, I started, my career in sales, so I find enablement so interesting because it ties the two areas that I know best together. and that’s something that I always found odd in the past. I. is that they didn’t work together and that they were in silos. So to me, enablement makes perfect sense, but I do agree with Jalpa.
I think there are still some silos that we do need to break down, but what I find really interesting is that technology gives us a way of tracking what. And isn’t working. And then you’ve got numbers to proofpoint to people why it’s more important to work together. So I really feel like the more data that we gather and the more feedback loops that we have, the more.
We are breaking down those silos and showing that teamwork works best. And I really do think that, you know, if you look at any type of teamwork or you look at team [00:17:00] sports where people play together and they, you know, pass the ball to one another, that’s where you get the most impact. That’s what I can see starting to happen with technology and with enablement tools between sales and marketing.
And as I say, you know, the more, more data we have, I think that’s just gonna push forward. And I imagine over time, I know we’ve not in the forward thinking part yet, Rachael, I’m going off piece a little, but I believe that in the future, sales and marketing won’t be two divisions, that they will come together as one division, particularly where you’ve got this parody of knowledge now from the buyer. You know, with the dawn of the internet, they can go and find out. A lot more about a product before they buy it. And so marketing’s role is really that first Part of the sales cycle is educating them so that they can find out about the product. So by the time they’re speaking to a sales advisor, they’re not necessarily looking for the sort of advice they were in the past.
It’s more now about advice on how to move forward with the decision they’ve made based on what they’ve educated [00:18:00] themselves on. So I think in the future we won’t have sales and marketing separate.
Rachael Rowe: Yes. And that’s something you and I have talked about quite a lot, as well, anecdotally, I think there’s a lot of strength in bringing those two organisations much closer together.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, I believe so.
Jalpa Bhatt: I agree what you said there, Gemma data, I think it plays quite a key role cause that really helps in defining and moving forward the strategy of enablement. The more data you’re collecting, the more it helps prove the picture to bring the sales and marketing teams together.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, really agree with that. Are there any particular data points that you are collecting, Jalpa that helps you in that mission or?
Jalpa Bhatt: We do, and I think that’s what I was also referring to in terms of the different technologies that we have. We would use, seismic to collect all the information around content usage. Now, at one point, that really works for marketing because then the content producers are able to analyse those engagement on different contents and they [00:19:00] can then move their content strategy based on the content usages. However, we are not taking that a step forward in terms of sales, utilising that content usage to drive their conversation forward with their clients. I think that’s still sitting siloed especially in my organisation currently, and it’s not that we don’t have tools.
We have tools. We have tools like Seismic, we have Salesforce, we have email marketing. However, I think we are not bridging that gap between the silos tools, not integrating them or not using the data in the right format,
Gemma Livermore: Yeah. And, and you’re not alone there. I think it’s just the stage of the journey that we’re all at as an industry. but what’s interesting is I think we’re all heading in the same direction and that. Interesting where we can see it will go. but this takes us really nicely to the next part, which is always my favourite side of the podcast.
And we call it the aftershock. So it’s really where we look at our future visions and have an idea of what we think will work well in the future. And you know, everyone always talks about what we do [00:20:00] differently now and how successful that is, but I think it’s also good to look at what’s working well and what to keep.
So at this point, I’d love to turn it to you, Jalpa and just ask. What do you think the future of enablement will look like and what would you like to keep that we have now? And what would you like to change to make things better in the future? I.
Jalpa Bhatt: I would start with what is working well, I guess, I think, uh, you are right. We are. And if I talk about our journey, in terms of the enablement, where we are currently, we are at, we are on the upwards, right? But we are at the place where need to probably stop and think, how do we accelerate this enablement strategy forward? There is lots of,Obviously, we wouldn’t have this conversation without mentioning AI in some form
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, the A word always comes in, in this bit.
Jalpa Bhatt: Absolutely. But I think where we are we stopping to think there is lots of AI solutions out there. Every product, every technology in the market is having their own sort of AI solution.We need [00:21:00] to kind of, think. How do we use AI in the way that it becomes more enabler rather than another technology to add to the stack and overwhelm of users with more data? I feel the future of enablement that’s where the key role is.
We determine how to use the current technologies that we have, and how do we optimise those? How do we integrate those? How do we layer AI on the top to really become truly enabling for all our sales and marketing folks to drive the revenue, to drive the sales. and like you said, what is most crucial for our sales teams today is the. best client experience ‘ cause that’s what drives the growth.
Rachael Rowe: Absolutely. And, I’d be interested Deepika. On your thoughts around some of the points that Jalpa’s raised there, because how do you see enablement evolving in financial services? I mean, do you agree with, Jalpa’s points? What kind of shifts do you think [00:22:00] will define the next chapter?
Deepika Sehgal: I totally agree with what Jalpa said. So I also believe that we are edge of the major evolution in the enablement and over to the next five to 10 years. The way we think about supporting advisor is going to look very different. So first and foremost, I see, as Jalpa said, AI is playing a central role these days and in the coming future.
Also, not just as a backend engine, but as a real time guide for advisors. I can imagine smart system that will offer content, suggestion , compliance, queues, or client insight right in the moment. Maybe during a call, a meeting, or even while drafting an email, we will get these suggestions and get these insight on the go, and that’s where we are going to head.
And so this means that we will move away from enablement being something delivered through periodic training or workshop. Instead of that, it’ll become dynamic and inflow learning and guidance embedded seamlessly into daily workflows.
I also think that the convergence of content, data compliance, and coaching [00:23:00] will accelerate. Right now, these areas often sit in different corners of the organisation, but in the future, they will work together to create a unified and adaptive advisor experience.
Rachael Rowe: Yes, I think that’s, a trend that we are seeing as well, that really AI is embedding within the workflow. So we’re effectively. meeting folks where they are their, on their journeys within the working, environment. We talk so much about the client journey, but I think that, you know, there’s a parallel conversation around the, employee journey and I think enablement, as you rightly say, what we’re seeing with the customers that we work with is that enablement has quite a strong role to play there.
Deepika Sehgal: Yeah, and ultimately I think enablement will no longer be a support function. It’ll be a core part of any firm’s digital transformation strategy and which will directly shape advisor performance, client satisfaction, and firm growth.
Rachael Rowe: Absolutely couldn’t agree with you more Jalpa. Any final thoughts?
Jalpa Bhatt: I agree with what Deepika is saying. enablement Is [00:24:00] definitely not going to be a support function. It would be a key driver, to which would be hand in hand with AI to make huge strides for sales and marketing in the right direction to give our clients the right client experience.
Whether it’s technology, whether it’s processes, whether it’s training, using platforms like Seismic Learning, using. Things like, meeting preps, for help with the meeting preps, help with, surfacing the right content in the right place on our website. any sort of touch points that our client would have with us, having enablement strategy to drive the use of AI in the correct form. That’s the future I’m looking at.
Gemma Livermore: So Rachael, I’ve absolutely loved this conversation. Any final thoughts from you on where you see the future of enablement going?
Rachael Rowe: I too, I thought at the beginning it would be very interesting and it’s turned out to be, yes. I think that some of the things obviously that you’re talking about are things that are already with us, and I think [00:25:00] that we can do quite a lot of that already. I think the challenges around organisational structure and organisations.
Moving at the same pace. I think that you said, I think it was Jalpa you said earlier about technology outpacing the pace of change in the industry. and I think that is probably the kind of the hurdle if you like to, progress. but things are moving quite fast and, it’ll be interesting to revisit this conversation maybe in a year’s time and see where, things stand. But for the moment, Jalpa, Deepika, I’d really like to thank you both for such a rich conversation. You’ve really helped frame enablement, both as a strategic necessity and as a competitive advantage.
Gemma Livermore: Completely agree, Rachael, it’s been a fantastic conversation, and I think our listeners will agree that now they know that enablement is the way to modernise firms for the future.
So thank you for tuning in to Seismic Sessions and hope to have you next time.
Deepika Sehgal: Thank you.
Jalpa Bhatt: Thank you very much.
