Smart Hub enables advisers to access a wide range of professionally-designed marketing support materials, which they can personalise and distribute to targeted sections of their client base. 

Materials include client proposition brochures, stock market bulletins – to be written in conjunction with fund groups and updated fortnightly – email templates and personalised business stationery.

We’re also developing client-facing newsletters tailored to suit all types of advisers within the network – from mortgage and protection, to pension and investment specialists.

All materials can be accessed at any time and printed on demand.

Throughout the year, we’ll supplement these with targeted marketing campaign materials. These will include adviser toolkits and client literature, to support advisers when discussing particular areas of advice with new and existing clients.

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The charity was set up on the initiative of HRH The Princess Royal in 1991, to help carers gain recognition and provide them with the support required to meet their diverse needs.

We will support this important work with a £50,000 annual grant from the Openwork Foundation, our community programme. The grant, which will run from 2012 to 2014, will create two new funding programmes for young carers: Opening Doors and Respite Break.

‘Opening Doors’ is aimed at identifying hidden young carers (approximately 1,350 in total) to enable them to access the charity’s services. ‘Respite Break’ is a focused programme to allow those undertaking the heaviest caring roles (around 300 carers) to attend a relief break aimed at increasing their self-awareness and identifying their aspirations.

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has done invaluable work for young carers over a long period of time and we are very pleased to be able to offer them our support for the next three years.

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Developed in conjunction with Assureweb, the Openwork-branded App was unveiled at yesterday’s 2012 Openwork National Conference in Birmingham. It will allow advisers to access quotes from our panel of protection providers, Openwork Select, or our single-tie proposition, Zurich Plus.

Users of Openwork Select will be able to obtain quotes via the App from all five providers on the panel: AEGON, Friends Life, Legal & General, Zurich and LV=.

The App, which can be downloaded to the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, will be made available to advisers in mid-February.

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Twenty-three cyclists set off for Jordan in October and cycled 320km in four days across the Arabian desert, from Madaba in the north to Aqaba in the south, raising money to support disadvantaged children and young people in the UK and overseas.

The Jordan cycle expedition included a day trek in Petra at extreme temperatures – ranging from 40C during the day to just above freezing at night. Northern Rock and Just Retirement were the key sponsors.

The Jordan expedition was the 11th overseas Cycle Challenge we’ve embarked on. The Foundation aims to support some of the most disadvantaged people in society and enable them to lead more independent lives under its theme, ‘Cares 4 Kids’.

Last year we funded grants for £400,000 to charities nominated by our staff and advisers, helping over 13,000 children.

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Our L&D team designs and delivers comprehensive training programmes. These cover mortgage and protection products, specialist investment and pension advice, in addition to induction, RDR and internal licensing courses.

Working closely with a number of external contractors and hand-picked dedicated partners, the L&D team offers advisers extensive qualification training. This is available both face-to-face and online.

They also provide product-specific toolkits and workshops for redeveloping business models to fit into a post-RDR environment.

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The roadshows, which are being held in a number of Premier League football grounds, began yesterday at St James’ Park in Newcastle. They will finish on 1 November at Wembley Stadium in London.

Around 500 of our advisers will be attending the events.

With a new format, the events will highlight our latest upcoming initiatives. External speakers will provide insights into the mortgage market and its future direction, advice on mortgage fraud and – via a debate – views on the key issues in the protection market.

The roadshows offer advisers the opportunity to speak to more than 20 of our providers.

As well as keeping advisers informed on upcoming developments and initiatives, the roadshows are designed to offer useful and practical help at what is a challenging time for many advice practices.

Given the breadth of the sessions and the quality of the speakers and content, we believe the roadshows will have something for everyone, whether they be practice principals, advisers or administrators.

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The new wrap is a core part of the RDR-readiness programme we announced in July and will be trialled by 15 advisers, representing a range of interests from large practices to sole traders, before a wider roll-out in 2012. Our own proposition will sit alongside Zurich’s retail savings platform, which we’re making available to our single-tie, multi-tie and whole of market businesses at the end of the year.

Philip Martin, Openwork’s Proposition and Marketing Director, says: “Developing partnerships with IFDL and Veracity is a transformational move that offers our advisers a host of key benefits while helping them transition their businesses to fee-charging models.

“Crucially, our offering will enable advisers to manage their own costs and help them compete successfully in a world in which consumers will increasingly shop around for advice. We are particularly pleased to be working with Veracity, whose high-quality approach ensures we can handle client legacy transfers in a much more streamlined and appropriate way.”

John Baxter, Veracity CEO, says: “To be working with an organisation the size of Openwork is testament to the flexibility and scalability of our offering. We believe our support will enable Openwork’s advisers to manage their clients’ financial needs with greater efficiency and robustness, freeing up more time to advise clients and develop their businesses.”

Hugo Thorman, Managing Director at IFDL adds, “We have always aimed to provide leading-edge solutions supported by proven functionality. For a business of Openwork’s scale to partner with us is a terrific compliment to the robustness of our technology. RDR changes the distribution landscape enormously and IFDL will continue to evolve and deliver to its partners in meeting that challenge.”

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Simon joins the business from Zurich Financial Services International Life, where he was most recently Chief Financial Officer for its Isle of Man operations. Simon, who helped launch Openwork in 2005, has an actuarial background and brings with him more than 15 years’ experience with the Zurich business.

As part of the move, Simon Brunt, our current Finance Director, has been appointed Strategic Integration Director. Among his other priorities in the coming 12 months, Simon will assume responsibility for managing the integration and delivery of the 2plan RI and IFA businesses.

Simon Clifford’s considerable financial acumen and in-depth knowledge of the sector will be of great benefit to us as we seek to grow the business over the coming years. Having been involved in the creation of Openwork, he has real passion for the business and is as excited as I am about the opportunities facing us.

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The restructure, which follows a review led by Mark Duckworth, Managing Director of Distribution and Marketing, sees the separation of our support and recruitment functions to enable our business development teams to dedicate their time exclusively to helping advisers grow and develop their own businesses. Additional assistance will be provided through promotional support and guidance designed to help advisers market their businesses effectively.

As part of the new structure, we’re establishing a standalone, centralised function for adviser recruitment. The new recruitment team will be led by Keith Atkinson, who assumes the newly created role of Business Acquisition Director. Keith joins us from Citri to lead recruitment and growth across all of Openwork’s adviser offerings.

Under the new structure, advisers will continue to have direct access to our specialist RDR transition team, which is dedicated to helping advisers decide on the right business model and proposition for the future, as well as supporting their transition to fees.

Commenting on the restructure, Mark Duckworth says: “In the current environment, with RDR looming large, it’s vital to have the right infrastructure to help our advisers grow their businesses and offer the support they need to prepare for the most significant industry change in decades. With dedicated growth and support functions, Openwork can offer advisers outstanding service whichever model they wish to adopt, be it whole of market, restricted or single-tie, ensuring Openwork remains at the forefront of the distribution sector.”

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The panel, which celebrates its first anniversary this week, features five leading providers – AEGON Scottish Equitable,  Friends Life, Legal & General, Zurich and Liverpool Victoria (LV=) – which collectively account for almost 40% of the protection market.

Since its introduction, we’ve worked closely with advisers to enhance their knowledge and skills in the protection space. Income protection and critical illness have been key focuses, with users writing around 20% more protection business on average.

Broadening the offering available to our advisers is a key part of our strategy so we are extremely pleased the panel has been such a success.

For so many users to have adopted the panel demonstrates how important protection has become for clients. As advisers increasingly seek to diversify, we believe the panel will have an important role to play in ensuring they have the tools they need to meet their clients’ protection needs in full.

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