DALBAR, Inc.
Corporate Profile
Having celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2001, DALBAR, Inc. is committed to raising the standards of excellence in the financial-services industry. Headquartered in Boston, with additional offices in Toronto, DALBAR develops standards for, and provides research, ratings, and rankings of intangible factors to the mutual fund, broker/dealer, discount brokerage, life insurance, and banking industries. They include investor behavior, customer satisfaction, service quality, communications, Internet services, and financial-professional ratings.
DALBAR in the beginning
In April, 1976, when DALBAR opened its doors in New York City, financial services encompassed myriad banks, stock exchanges, brokerages, mutual fund companies, life insurance and annuity firms, retirement plans, and more, and enough legislation governing all of them to make one's head spin. The Investment Company Act of 1940 was 36 years old, mutual-fund assets topped $51 billion dollars, and there were more than 8 million mutual fund accounts.
So has DALBAR evolved in the past 25 years. DALBAR'S original mission was to concentrate on Consulting, Research, and Systems development for the Mutual Fund Industry. In 1979 DALBAR opened its Boston office, and consolidated its operations there in 1986. By then, mutual-fund assets had surpassed $715 billion dollars, and there were more than 46 million mutual fund accounts.
The Measurement of Success
In 1986, DALBAR introduced its new tagline, "The Measurement of Success" as it began its evolution from a private consulting, research and systems focus to developing measurement systems for intangibles, such as customer behaviors, recognizing that the Mutual Fund industry had begun its transition from a pure product focus to requiring both a product and customer orientation. We began to see words like, 'marketing' and 'sales' creep into the jargon of the burgeoning financial services industry.
Also in 1986, DALBAR developed and began publishing the Mutual Fund industry's first periodicals, including The Journal of Mutual Fund Services, Mutual Fund Market News, and others. That business line remained a part of DALBAR until it was sold to Thomson Financial Networks in 1998.
Syndicated Research
As the need for intangible measurements arose, DALBAR launched its first syndicated research, the Broker/Dealer Survey, and thus was born the customer-based ratings for which DALBAR has become so well known.
In 1987, DALBAR pioneered the measurement of service quality using a unique system that captures the actual experience of customers. DALBAR system measures hundreds of discrete elements of customer interaction to provide ratings and rankings of service quality.
In the early 1990's DALBAR continued to develop measurements for intangibles with a focus on communications. Systems were developed to evaluate the effectiveness and consistency of the high volume of written materials that passed between financial services institutions and their customers. The growing need to improve communications with financial services customers has made ratings of communications a central part of DALBAR'S business.
Intangible Measurements
The 1990's also presented the opportunity for DALBAR to expand beyond mutual funds into providing intangible measurements for insurance, annuities, brokerage, and retirement plans.
As traditional methods of financial-services promotion were rendered obsolete by increasing demand for complete, unbiased, and reliable financial advice, DALBAR completed research that produced the Personal Financial Advice series in 1996. It measured the level of demand for advice and determined consumer preferences, expectations, beliefs, and sources for personal financial advice.
Into the Web Era
In 1997, DALBAR made its first foray into Internet Services with a Mutual Fund and Variable Annuity tracking service delivered via e-mail.
Two years later, DALBAR teamed up with Microsoft to roll out the The Right Advisor. The service, which was linked to Microsoft's MoneyCentral.com, was based on DALBAR's research of the key factors that produced a successful relationship between financial profesionals and clients.
Later in 1999, WebMonitor, a daily review of change in functionality and content at financial-services companies Web sites, was being delivered to hundreds of customers. And, DALBAR began offering a Web site Analysis service that provides guidance to financial-services institutions in advancing the effectiveness of their Internet presence. Mutual-fund assets were now at a staggering $6.846 trillion dollars, with more than 227 million shareholder accounts.
And today? The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds have reached $7.234 trillion. And DALBAR looks forward to making excellence a part of everything our clients do as we begin our second twenty-five years.
