Challenges associated with recruiting support staff for Australian advice practices have driven the successful development and growth of outsourcing services firm, Levera.
The Melbourne-based business was launched in 2020 by the Founder of Link Wealth Group, Steve Sloane, who told Riskinfo his original motivation for launching Levera was to implement a solution to staff the back office administration needs of his successful and growing advice practice.
Sloane opened Link Wealth Group’s doors in Melbourne in 2012 with just himself and a hot desk. Fast forward to 2024, where his practice now boasts eight authorised representatives serving the advice needs of the middle-Australian market around the country, together with another seven associates undertaking their professional year commitments.
Central to Sloane’s growth agenda has been the need for an efficient and reliable back office administration function. He says recruiting, training and retaining Australian staff to fill these administration support roles has become more problematic over time, which effectively drove him down the pathway of seeking an overseas solution.
Originally intended to serve the back office administration requirements only for Link Wealth Group, the structure implemented by Sloane and his team at Link Wealth has seen Levera become a stand-alone overseas administration outsourcing offer which now provides services to more than 20 external advice firms around the country in addition to Link Wealth itself.
Operating from three office locations in the city of Clark in The Philippines, Levera provides back office administration services including:
- End-to-end advice implementation processes and associated paperwork
- Other back-office administration requirements
- CRM management
- Data entry
Sloane told Riskinfo Levera recently launched a paraplanning offer, but the driver and focus of the business – the bread and butter, according to Sloane – is “… the back office administration – the grunt work, the paperwork.”
Business growth
…overseas outsourcing …allows him the opportunity to invest in the front end of his business
Sloane counters any suggestion that the overseas outsourcing of back office administration roles is costing Australians jobs. Rather, this move has served not just to create a more efficient and profitable advice practice, according to Sloane, but it also allows him the opportunity to invest in the front end of his business, recruiting more advisers and creating more front-end service roles.
Sloane: “There’s got to be a balance. If the back-end jobs are outsourced overseas, this creates an opportunity to create jobs in Australia at the front end of the business, so that the client facing roles, advisers, customer service officer roles, receptionists, can expand.”
He continued, “I haven’t reduced head count. I’ve just increased the front end to increase productivity, and I’ve been able to do that by increasing that offshore exposure.”
Security
When questioned about risks associated with cyber security and client data protection, Sloane was ready to share the Levera experience. He says the business has needed to invest significant amounts of money into data security, data integrity and cyber security. The Levera set-up combines with Link Wealth’s own systems, which sees two IT teams operating – one in Australia and the other offshore. He adds all advice clients – both Link Wealth’s and the clients of the 20+ external forms – have access to all those services:
“It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, the same risk exists. And it must be managed as required. We make sure it’s second to none in the industry.”
He added that the Link Wealth and Levera administration staff represent one organic team “…and if there’s established a better way of doing things within Link back office, such as insurance applications, this will be shared with Levera to implement the efficiency into all advice practice clients using this outsourcing service.”
The future
In looking forward, Sloane is firmly of the belief that the outsourcing of back office administration services will become an even more compelling requirement for advice firms, who will become more and more challenged to recruit and retain enough staff support to manage the ever-increasing demand for advice services as part of the current intergenerational wealth transfer phenomenon:
…we really don’t have the human manpower in Australia to deal with what’s going to come in terms of the growth in advice
“The reality is that we really don’t have the human manpower in Australia to deal with what’s going to come in terms of the growth in advice over the next couple of years with the transfer of wealth. There’s going to be a significant amount of work that needs to be undertaken, and I really don’t think we’ve got the capability to handle that in Australia,” cautions Sloane.
Succinctly summarising his view on the future of outsourced back office administration services for Australian advice businesses, Sloane concluded:
“So, if it’s not already, it’s only going to become more popular.”
