Understanding and Using the Business Development App

Learning Team

Overview

Advice firms are made up of people who are all performing different and vital roles. Whether they manage assets, book appointments or ensure everything the firm does is compliant, each user has different information needs. One common thread among these roles is the need for fast access to all the information they care most about.

Practifi enables a personalized experience through our role-based apps, ensuring users can access the most relevant information quickly and efficiently. Out of the box, Practifi provides users with a suite of apps designed to cater to some commonly found roles in a firm. This article outlines the functionality available through the Business Development app.

The Business Development App

The Business Development app leverages the power of Practifi’s award-winning business management platform to bring users comprehensive lifecycle management of growth through mergers and acquisitions. We’ve taken the best of Practifi’s core capabilities and made them available to teams responsible for business development, whether through M&A activity or growing your network.

Users can be assigned the Business Development app as their default app, meaning that they will automatically land on this app when logging into Practifi or will have the Business Development app available in addition to their other assigned apps. In order to access this app, a user must have the Practifi - Assigned Apps - Business Dev permission AND one of these three permission sets assigned to their user profile:

Practifi - Business Dev - BDR
Practifi - Business Dev - Growth Manager
Practifi - Business Dev - Operations

Each permission set corresponds to one of the common roles found in Growth or M&A teams at wealth management firms and enables a different set of components on the app’s Home page.

For additional information on assigning permission sets to user profiles, please consult our Managing User Permissions article. Once assigned the correct permission set, the app will become available in the App Launcher located in the upper left-hand corner of Practifi.

The Home Page

The Home Page displays activities occurring in your firm and displays the information that matters most in a series of tiles and charts. Selecting a chart or tile reveals the records related to them in a record table. To learn more about the Home Page, please consult our Understanding the Home Page and Using the Home Page articles.

Tiles

Tiles within the Business Development app focus on tasks and outstanding items to help with the firm's day-to-day work. The standard tiles available and the information they pull in are as follows:

My Tasks
- Open tasks - Tasks assigned to your user profile with a related entity attached and not in the status of Completed or Cancelled.
- Due and overdue tasks - Tasks assigned to your user profile with a related entity attached, not in the status of Completed or Cancelled with a due date that is either today or any date in the past.
- Open delegated tasks - Tasks created by your user profile currently assigned to another user with a related entity attached and not in the status of Completed or Cancelled.
- Open personal tasks - Tasks created by your user profile without a related entity attached and not in the status of Completed or Cancelled.
- Due and overdue delegated tasks - Tasks created by your user profile currently assigned to another user with a related entity attached, not in the status of Completed or Cancelled with a due date that is either today or any date in the past.
Open & Upcoming Items
- Firms and Advisors not contacted in 30 days - Displays Organizations designated as firms under consideration for acquisition (or Individuals at those Organizations) where the time since last contact is more than 30 days.
- Upcoming meetings - A list of meetings that are occurring today or within the next seven days.
- Firms and Advisors with open Processes - Shows details of processes that are in progress at Key Entities designated as firms and advisors under consideration for acquisition.

System Administrators can customize tile visibility within your organization to add or remove Practifi tiles as needed. For information on customizing tile visibility, please consult our Adding and Removing Practifi Tiles article.

Charts

Charts on the Business Development app's Home Page help visualize the acquisition lifecycle of the firm. Please note: the charts displayed on the Home page of the Business Development app can differ based on the permission set assigned to the viewer.

The charts available within the Business Development app are as follows:

Deals
- Open Deals by BDR - Displays the open Deals you own separated by their current Acquisition Stage.
- Deals by Time in Current Stage - Shows the number of open Deals grouped together by how long they have been in their current Deal Status.
- Open Deals by Status - Displays the open Deals you own separated by their current Deal Status.
- Open Deals by Type - Displays the open Deals you own separated by Deal Type: Merger, Lift Out or Book of Business.
Pipeline
- Firms & Advisors by AUM - Shows a bar chart with firms and advisors under consideration for acquisition broken down by assets under management.
- Firms & Advisors by Stage - Displays a donut chart with firms and advisors under consideration for acquisition broken down by Acquisition Segment.
Firms and Advisors
- Firms by Size - Shows a bar chart of firms under consideration for acquisition grouped by number of employees.
- Firms & Advisors by Stage - Displays a donut chart with firms and advisors under consideration for acquisition broken down by Acquisition Segment.
Due Diligence
- Active Due Diligence Processes - Displays all open processes related to advisors or firms with "due diligence" in the Process Name.
- Firms & Advisors in Due Diligence - Shows the number of firms and advisors with an Acquisition Stage of Due Diligence, grouped by how long they have been in that stage.
Onboarding
- Active Onboarding Processes - Displays all open processes related to advisors or firms with "onboarding" in the Process Name.
- Firms & Advisors in Onboarding - Shows the number of firms and advisors with an Acquisition Stage of Onboarding, grouped by how long they have been in that stage.

The Acquisition Lifecycle

The acquisition lifecycle tracks the key stages that occur on the way to a finalized acquisition of a Firm or an Advisor. These stages are outlined below:

Consideration: A shortlist of firms and advisors you’re considering making an offer to.
Contention: The prospects in contention for acquisition, with offers directly made to them.
Due Diligence: Prospects who have signed a letter of intent and are ready to proceed. Manage the background checks and other tasks performed to validate your decision.
Onboarding: Firms and advisors that are currently in the process of joining your company.
Acquired: The acquisition is complete, and now a part of your firm, contributing to your growth.

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Lifecycle progression is handled with contextual actions. For example, a firm under consideration has access to the Promote to Contender action in the Actions menu on the record page. This action progresses the record from Consideration to Contention. However, firms at other lifecycle stages will not see Promote to Contender as an available action.

The lifecycle stage of a Firm or Advisor record is treated as a definition. This means it appears alongside the record’s name in important areas of the app, such as on its record page, in the Directory and search results page.

Firms and Advisors

You have access to Firm and Advisor Key Entity records to track your connections and network growth within the Business Development app. These records are used to track your firm's growth in your network and the potential acquisition of these entities. Firms and Advisors are both captured as Key Entities in your Practifi instance, which means they benefit from the full range of functional capabilities available to those records:

Workflow automation and task management with Processes and Tasks
Engagement management with Activities
The Feed for collaboration between team members
Tracking referrals with Influence
Relationships to capture links with other people or groups, no matter what those links are
Informal tag-based classification with Topics
Notes and Files to comprehensively archive any content related to the relationship

These records work similarly to Households, Organizations and Individuals but with the added functionality of the acquisition lifecycle.

Considering a Firm for Acquisition

To place a firm in the acquisition pipeline, you must first create an Organization record for them in the Business Development app. As a part of the creation workflow, you can add employees to the organization.

To mark an organization as a firm for acquisition:

Open the Organization record for the firm you want to consider.
Click the Actions menu in the record side panel and select Consider for Acquisition.
In the Consider for Acquisition popup window, click the Consider for Acquisition button to confirm the action. A success message appears.
"Firm under Consideration" now appears under the organization's name as a definition.
From here, you can move the firm through the acquisition lifecycle using the Actions menu to select Mark As Contender, Start Due Diligence, etc.

Considering an Advisor for Acquisition

To place an individual advisor in the acquisition pipeline, you must first create an Individual record for them in the Business Development app.

To mark an advisor as considered for acquisition:

Open the Individual record for the advisor you want to consider.
Click the Actions menu in the record side panel and select Consider for Acquisition.
In the Consider for Acquisition popup window, click the Consider for Acquisition button to confirm the action. A success message appears.
"Advisor under Consideration" now appears under the individual's name as a definition.
From here, you can move the advisor through the acquisition lifecycle using the Actions menu to select Mark As Contender, Start Due Diligence, etc.

Trackable Data

We’ve made significant extensions to the Entity object, providing a comprehensive set of fields for capturing crucial data points in the acquisition lifecycle. These fields are outlined in the table below. Please note that fields in italics aren’t visible on-screen by default to minimize clutter, however, they can be enabled if desired.

Field Section	Field Name	Notes
Top Section	Year Founded
	Structure
	Services Offered
Employees	Employees
	Number of Offices
	Number of Advisors
	Number of Principals
AUM	AUM
	Discretionary AUM	The total value of managed assets where buy and sell decisions are made by the firm on behalf of their clients.
	Non-Discretionary AUM	The total value of managed assets where buy and sell decisions are made by the clients themselves, and the advisor or firm must be granted approval before making any of their own.
	Foreign AUM
	Charitable Organization AUM
	High Net-Worth AUM
	Non-High Net-Worth AUM
Business Metrics	EBITDA	Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
	Number of Clients
	AUM per Client
	High Net-Worth Clients
	Non-High Net-Worth Clients
	Foreign Clients
	Charitable Organizations
	Clients Average Age
	Estimated Revenue
	Number of Referrals per Year
	Average Client Tenure
	Fee Standard
Valuation	Valuation
	Valuation Date
	Standard of Value
	Methodology
Fit	Book Fit	How well do the investments they manage fit your strategy and philosophy? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100.
	Client Fit	How well do their clients fit your desired demographics? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100.
	Culture Fit	How well does their organizational culture fit your own? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100.
	Investment Philosophy
Tech Stack	CRM
	Portfolio Manager
	Custodians
	Financial Planning

App Enablement

Assign the Practifi - Assigned Apps - Business Dev permission to the user profile of the user AND one of the following permissions:

Practifi - Business Dev - BDR
Practifi - Business Dev - Growth Manager
Practifi - Business Dev - Operations

These permissions will set the user's access to the above components. Consult the table below for component visibility by permission level. These components are grouped by their respective Tile or Chart Row.

Component Name	Practifi - Business Dev - BDR	Practifi - Business Dev - Growth Manager	Practifi - Business Dev - Operations
Open tasks (Tile)
Due and overdue tasks (Tile)
Open delegated tasks (Tile)
Due and overdue delegated tasks (Tile)
Open personal tasks (Tile)
Firms and Advisors not contacted in 30 days (Tile)
Upcoming meetings (Tile)
Firms and Advisors with open Processes (Tile)
Open Deals by BDR (Chart)
Open Deals by Status (Chart)
Open Deals by Time in Current Stage (Chart)
Open Deals by Type (Chart)
Firms & Advisors by AUM (Chart)
Firms & Advisors by Stage (Chart)
Active Due Diligence Processes (Chart)
Firms & Advisors in Due Diligence (Chart)
Active Onboarding Processes (Chart)
Firms & Advisors in Onboarding (Chart)