Integration of family office services brings together internal and/or external service providers across some or all of the Ten Domains of Family Wealth to achieve a variety of benefits for clients and firms.  It goes beyond basic cooperation (which is task-specific) or even skilled collaboration among providers (which is situation-specific) to add elements of leadership, team process, and consistent project management.

In an integration process, service providers work together effectively on behalf of the client, appropriately sharing information within proper bounds of confidentiality and privilege. There needs to be at least one integrated wealth advisor or expert generalist on the team who oversees the integration process to maintain accountability and keep projects on track. The central advisory firm – a hub provider in a hub-and-spoke network – must also implement organizational, technology, provider compensation, and management factors to support integration. As is often seen in healthcare integration, the process becomes a mindset and systemic approach rather than a set of collaborative behaviors for a given situation. In addition, the client family needs to understand, support, and be willing to pay for integrated services.

There are currently no standards in the industry for what constitutes integration of services.  The UHNW Institute is currently developing a framework and guidelines to organize services into verifiable patterns of integration so firms and clients can have clarity about the process.

See Also: Integrated family wealth advisor, Expert generalist, Cooperation, Collaboration, Patterns of integration