Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
Q&A with IPO hopeful, Gefen
This week we interviewed Co-founder and Co-CEO Orni Daniel from Gefen Technologies, an Israeli-based digital distribution platform that has been initially aimed at Australia’s insurance market. The company is looking at an ASX listing towards the end of the year.
After speaking with Daniel, it was immediately apparent that Gefen Technologies has built what looks like a ground-breaking all-in-one software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that allows product sellers such as insurance companies, to reach, engage and connect with financial advisers and insurance brokers to help them provide their clients with a digital experience not seen before. Daniel says: “Covid has forced the digital take-up like never before, and the insurance world is not immune. While some insurance agents feel they’ve been left behind with the rapid rise of comparison websites, Gefen Tech has unveiled a new digital platform that allows agents to empower meaningful interactions between insurance providers and their customers.”
The tech enables insurance companies to “digitise” their representatives so that they can digitally distribute marketing and communication content to end-customers. Currently, the way an insurance company gets their product to market is either through direct internet sales, through comparison websites such as Choosi or Compare the Market, or through a salesforce, i.e. a financial advisor or broker. The problem with comparison websites is that some sites compare only a fraction of the market; and some are owned by the insurance companies they’re supposedly comparing. It is not a level playing field and as with COVID, it has forced the wealth management industry to connect digitally with clients.
This is where Gefen Technologies is able to equip financial advisors by creating a personalised website using digital marketing to drive quality leads, marketing and selling across all digital channels. The platform is primarily used to distribute marketing and communications material across various digital channels to help financial advisers and insurance brokers communicate better with their clients. By creating this channel and therefore giving advisers a digital presence, Gefen frees up their time so that they can do what they do best, which is to connect with their clients.
Gefen’s business model is based around a subscription model whereby both the insurance company and the advisors pay per month. So, unlike a comparison website, it is not about the product, it’s about solving a customer’s problem first. The model aims to arm financial advisors with a state-of-the-art website that gives their clients the opportunity to select the right product for them, seamlessly and effortlessly.
Gefen Technologies has secured Aussie insurer TAL and Global Insurer Generali Group. It’s also planning a $20 million ASX listing by year’s end. What is compelling about Gefen’s tech is its versatility and adaptability. The technology can be applied to not only insurance companies, but to the entire financial services sector, real estate sector or any industry where a company can digitise its salesforce via digital marketing and communication of content through agents to end customers.
As the world has already made the move to become entirely digital, it brings with it new and exciting growth opportunities for companies such as Gefen Technologies that are ready to capture this upside potential.
