Technology helps family offices operate more efficiently and also provides data and analysis to inform decision making. The 2024 RSM Family Office Operational Excellence report, a survey by RSM of 100 family offices in the U.S and Canada, took a detailed look at how single family offices use technology.
The family offices in the survey said they use technology both for routine tasks and to streamline key functions. The survey found that a majority of family offices use technology for a wide range of tasks:
Wealth aggregation software: 87%
Cloud-based data storage: 70%
Automated investment reporting: 60%
Automated aggregation of financial data: 60%
Automated payroll and payments: 56%
Financial market information: 55%
Financial budgeting, planning and reporting: 51%
Less common reported uses of technology included mobile access to data (21%), customizable accounting software (16%), proprietary trading systems (10%) and integration software to create an enterprise-level view (8%).
There were some differences in how newer family offices used technology compared with more established ones. For example, 80% of those established between 2015 and 2023 use cloud technology, but just 67% of those established in the 1970s and 1980s do. And the responses indicated that virtually all family offices think they could improve their technology: Only 3% consider their investment and operational technology to be leading edge.