In an interview with Yogita Khatri of myiris.com, Malhar Majumder, CEO, Gliese Consulting says, ``If norms are not supported by suitable execution mechanism, it`s not worth.``
> Could you please tell us about Gliese Consulting? When did you begin journey in the financial advisory space and how has the journey been so far?
I am in the financial advisory space for the last 8 years. However the journey started earlier when I was managing the provident fund of a large PSU (1999 - 2002). We had around 6000+ members and whenever a member used to retire, he used to seek my guidance. And so it began - and as I moved forward, I started enjoying listening to them and solving their problems. It was like jig-saw puzzles where I need to put all the blocks at the right place. As I closely observed the issues in their life, the idea to service them more professionally was conceived. And I quit my job in 2003.
The transition from a government officer to a financial advisor was a tough choice. I need to educate myself as well as I need to grow my business. The education part was easier but business was tough.
My practice started taking a shape only during 2008. By this time I had done a stint with FPSB India as a knowledge management head and established myself as a corporate trainer.
Since 2008 to 2010 - I was consolidating my practice as an individual. Gliese Consulting was born when a few financial planners approached me in 2010 and wanted to learn under my guidance. I have already obtained a critical mass in practice and thought this to be an opportunity to corporatize it and create a process centric mechanism to grow faster. So Gliese was incorporated in 2011.
> Is your client base a mix of retail and HNI or any particular segment? Are your clients clear in their goals? What steps do you take to bring clarity to their goals?
The USP of my practice is goal centrism. I try to involve the clients in the overall process. We don`t leave a client with a plan in hand but take it to the actual fulfillment stage.
We have created several standard solutions built around the problem areas that person face in his financial life. The solutions on offer can be directly linked with a retail, HNI or NRI clientele.
> Financial literacy and customer education is seen as a step towards helping the common man take right investment decisions. Is your company planning any initiative in this regard?
Being a corporate trainer, I am involved in several financial education programs. I have worked with a lot of banks, financial institutions, different levels of distributors as well regularly spoken in forums organized by NISM, BSE, FPSB India etc.
Education and training is my passion and I deeply feel that 90% of my job is done, if I can educate my client properly. This is a continuous activity in Gliese and each member of our company is responsible for educating the client.
> Government mulls strict norms for wealth management advisors followed by the recent fraud case in a bank`s wealth management unit. Do you think stricter norms will help? How do you see the business environment for advisors in 2011?
Being a company secretary, I am trained in compliances. My experience says that if norms are not supported by suitable execution mechanism it`s not worth. Also the execution should be impartial, process oriented and applicable uniformly to each unit (be it small and large) in the universe.
``Planning`` is the future of financial marketing service. But Planning should be complemented with servicing the clients. Advisors, who can build their business around these, will enjoy long term dividends.
> People are worried about a stumbling India growth story, about high inflation, high deficits, FII outflows etc. What is your market outlook for 2011?
I really don`t know. My advisory model doesn`t really depend on short term market forecasts.
> How many life insurance companies do you deal with? How much is the whole insurance business in your total?
None directly. However I advise my clients in choosing suitable products from all the insurance companies.
> What are the aspects that matter to you when selecting funds for your clients? Your top 3 equity fund picks and debt fund picks with key attributes you like in them?
The selection process in MF involves the following screens:
# Fund House, fund manager and their philosophy (60%)
# Consistency in performance (20%)
# Risk adjusted rate of return (10%)
# Others (10%)
We select couple of funds in each category (Large cap, mid cap, debt, sectors etc). We use these funds in creating the asset allocation.
> How many fund houses do you deal with? In which fund house do you have the maximum AUM (in terms of percentage)? Tell us your favorite all-time MF schemes and fund managers.
My company doesn`t have an ARN. I work on a model where fulfillment is done by a partner distributing organization. However, the client is at a liberty to work with any other distributing organization of their choice. We restrict ourselves to around 5 fund houses and as I stated we put a lot of emphasis on the fund house and the fund manager.
> Have you as a team set a goal for the next three years for Gliese Consulting? How do you plan to expand your business?
In the next 3 years, we would be creating more solutions, which would make the lives of our client a lot simpler and worry free. We have successfully taken up very challenging assignments in `debt management`, `post retirement issues` as well as `death & estate matters`. We would like to carry on this work and expand our business in these lines.
> Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
We would like the readers to share their experiences and problems with us. These experiences actually help us to identify a common problem area and help us to build a solution around them.
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