How Invest Blue is harnessing the power of outsourcing

Invest Blue managing director David Stephen reveals how outsourcing is helping the advice business achieve its growth aspirations.

Outsourcing has become a critical strategy for financial advice leaders looking to optimise their business and gain greater efficiencies. One of the key purposes of utilising a third-party offshore team is to offload burdensome tasks and allow advisers to spend more time in front of clients.

National advice firm Invest Blue is a prime example of this approach, which harnesses outsourced services through Philippine-Australian company Vital Business Partner (VBP). Invest Blue is one of VBP’s largest clients and shareholders after it co-invested in the firm with AZ NGA in 2022.

The services that VBP provides to advice firms include financial planning administration, paraplanning, bookkeeping, accounting and mortgage broking administration.

Invest Blue has always operated in a remote fashion, Stephen explained, as it was established in Armidale, NSW, and gradually expanded throughout Australia’s eastern seaboard in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania.

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“We were a business that was founded remotely. If I was in Armidale and my admin team was in Rockhampton, I was already working remotely with them. Whether the person doing my paperwork was in Cebu or Manila, it didn’t really make a difference. We were used to working that way,” he told Money Management.

Since it first began using outsourced administrative services in 2015, Invest Blue has grown from 11 offshore staff and 35 onshore team members to now 190 offshore and 310 onshore.

“We vary between 30–33 per cent of our total workforce [located offshore] and that has not shifted. During that time, our onshore staff has increased from 35 to 310 – so we’ve 10x our Australian-based local staff.”

The third of its workforce who are operating in the Philippines look after back-end administrative responsibilities, such as paraplanning and file notes, while providing support to Invest Blue’s onshore staff.

As a result, this has enabled its Australian advisers to focus on more high-value tasks and service a greater number of clients.

The managing director added: “As we create new onshore roles, we support them with offshore roles. The concept of allowing people onshore to grow and evolve into the highest roles that they can and then supporting the administrative elements of their role through offshoring – that’s been our model.

“We have some ratios in the advice business where it might be two or four advisers, one or two relationship managers, and one or two offshore support staff.”

With Invest Blue’s advisers spending less time on administration and low-value tasks, they can dedicate more of their day on strengthening existing client relationships and building new ones.

“Our objective is really to have advisers spending the most amount of time they can in front of clients.”

The firm’s long-term growth ambitions, Stephen said, is for Invest Blue to open an office in every major Australian city and town with a population of more than 50,000 people.

The business currently services 14,500 clients across Australia, which it is seeking to increase to 60,000 as a long-term ambition. Meanwhile, its adviser-client capacity has risen from 180 clients per adviser to a potential of 230 clients per adviser.

Stephen said: “Our big dream is to empower 60,000 Australians to live the best possible life. We’re not going to get there at the moment with the current supply of advisers and current inefficiencies in the system, so if we get some efficiency [through outsourcing], it allows us to provide more advice to more Australians and that’s really what our purpose is all about.

“Our vision is about creating a trusted home of great advice. [Outsourcing] has allowed us to build a business that is of significant scale.”