Running Your Entire RIA Business on Microsoft 365: Eliminating Silos and Third-Party Tools – RIA Tech Talk Episode #14

Todd W. Darroca
Hello, hello, and welcome to the RIA Tech Talk podcast brought to you by RIA Workspace.
I’m Todd Darroca, and alongside me is my partner in crime, Mr. David Kakish, and together we’re on a mission to simplify the complex world of technology for RIAS like yours.

Now in the podcast, we’ll be your tech guides, breaking down those often-confusing tech topics in the plain old practical terms.

So we hope you join us for each episode as we dive into the latest tech trends, share our expert insights, and help you navigate the ever changing world of RIA technology.

So we’re gonna dive right in.Let’s get started. David, we’re gonna be talking about running your entire RIA business on Microsoft 365 and how you can eliminate a lot of those third party silos that we’re seeing out there.

David Kakish
Sounds good. Well, Todd, thank you for introducing me and I want to thank the listener. And here’s, you know, it’s, it’s really amazing because I feel like I’m a broken record and I’m repeating the same message.

But, but it’s happens all the time where Rias are not fully utilizing the Microsoft 365 subscription and paying for 3rd party tools that are not as good as what Microsoft provides.

And I mean, prior to our recall right now, I had one of those calls where it’s like, Oh my goodness, it’s just amazing.The same, same thing. So I’m, I’m repeating it and I’m gonna keep repeating it.

And I feel like I’m repeating the same message, but I’m trying to get the point across that, oh my goodness, so many of you are not doing this and that’s why I’m repeating it. But I will be talking about, you know, I here, I guess, I guess what I’m going to say is you can run your entire business on Microsoft 365.

There are pieces that you may not because there’s something better that’s out there, but I would say, you know, 80%-90% of what Microsoft has for you works really, really, really well.

And I’m going to, I’m going to say this, and I say this with a high level of confidence that if you’re listening to us, I’m going to share eight different things.

But I can tell you there’s at least one that’s going to a very actionable insight that you can take and you can apply in your business and it’s going to make a difference. I’m pretty sure there’s three or more that you can walk away and apply in your business.

But let’s just say, even if you walk away with one actionable item that you can apply in your RIA, it’s going to have a really big impact. And what you can do is with these things that we share with you, you can either do it yourself, you can go to your current IT provider to help you say, hey, I heard David and Todd talk about this thing. We want to go ahead and you know, roll this out for us or reach out to us and we’re happy to help.

Todd W. Darroca
No, so you’re, you say you were a broken record, but I will tell you I finally heard your message because even me, I, I switched to Microsoft 365 just about a month ago, 365 Office and all that because as a small business owner, I was, I, and I’m not kidding you, I didn’t plan this because you told me they were going to have silos, all this stuff.

But I literally was, I was using so many different things, Slack, you know, different e-mail servers, all of this stuff. And, and so I was like, all right, you know what, we’re going to try this.

And so actually there is a friendlier pricing version for Microsoft 365 business for small business owners like myself. And I was astonished by it. But I will say that now I have all my chats in one place.
It all connects into the e-mail. And I figured out that Microsoft has Microsoft Stream and so I can take audio recordings of meetings or whatever and they get transcribed. So no longer do I have to use the third party to transcribe some of my meetings and, you know, talks and all that stuff.

So I will say, David, after 14 episodes, I have heard your message and I have decided to take the plunge into Microsoft.

So, yeah. So there you go.There’s there’s one proof point for you.

David Kakish
Yeah. And, and you’re not even in RIA.

Todd W. Darroca
And that’s what’s I’m not. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the thing.

David Kakish
So all right. Well, I’m glad, I’m glad to, I’m glad to see that that’s rubbing off on the.

So, OK, now that we’ve chuckled a little bit again, the title of the session today is, hey, the podcast is running your entire RIA business on Microsoft 365 and, and how to eliminate silos and 3rd party tools.

And, and the question that we’re going to answer for you is can I run my entire bid, my entire RIA business on a Microsoft 365 and not have all these different silos?

So I’m going to cover, I’m going to cover. Let me take a look here. 8 different things. Don’t worry, it’s not overwhelming.

These are kind of like 8 things that are relevant for your business and I’ll start with the easy one like e-mail, right?

You know if if you have most, most Rias now are running Microsoft 365 for e-mail. Some, very few have an on site e-mail server. That used to be a thing. It’s no longer a lot of there’s a good amount of Rias that are still using like a different third party to holster e-mail like maybe Red Tail or Appriver or Rackspace. That’s a good solution, but I’m telling you, if you host it with Microsoft, it’s a much better solution because you can take advantage of the latest technology that Microsoft has.

And I don’t want to get too much into it, but you know, like a big concern that we sometimes get is people that are using Red Tail as a CRM, Red Tail can also host their e-mail. And the big fear is like, hey, if I host my e-mail at Microsoft, am I going to lose all the e-mail history with Red Tail and things like that?

Then the reality is, look, Red Tails a great CRM, but they’re not really an e-mail hosted provider. If you host your e-mail with Microsoft and you’re using, you continue to use Red Tail as a CRM, all the client history still going to be there, you’re really not going to lose anything. And there’s a direct integration and it works really well.

So #1 and I’m not going to spend too much time on it is e-mail that’s, I think, pretty straightforward. OK, got it, got it.

Any questions on that? Are we good?

Todd W. Darroca
No, no, let’s go on number 2 with the files.

David Kakish
All right #2 your files and folders.

If you have your files on your server in your office or if you have your files hosted on a server with your IT provider, don’t do it. You don’t need to do that anymore. Use SharePoint and I’ll explain it a little bit. If you’re using dropboxorbox.com or Ignite or some other online folder system, you don’t need it. Get rid of it.  Use SharePoint.

The reason we say that is SharePoint is fully integrated within the Microsoft ecosystem. Don’t use OneDrive, use SharePoint, right? And, and with SharePoint, what’s really nice is if I’m sort of an average user, I just click on that file folder structure or what’s called File Explorer on my computer and I can work and I can be fully productive.

So if you’re listening to us and you hate SharePoint because of the old SharePoint, it’s not the old SharePoint that you know, like that’s so, you know, I, I had that problem and I wish Microsoft changed its name to something else. But basically you can have your file folder structure by using SharePoint.

And the way that it works, OK, I click on my computer, I’ll go to that, you know, I click on File Explorer, I’ll open up that specific file folder. It’s indexed locally on my computer, but it’s saved at the Microsoft Data center. It’s saved in my private environment for my RIA at Microsoft’s data center. That’s why I click on that.

I work, the speed is phenomenal, the performance is phenomenal. And then if my computer is lost or stolen or corrupted or, you know, whatever, that’s OK because that data is not sitting on my computer.

1. 
   So I would definitely recommend that. And for those of you that are Mac users that are out there, the, the you would use Finder, right? And this works really well.
   
   So what’s really nice and, and this whole Microsoft ecosystem works really well with Macbooks incredibly well, actually. You’re using Office for Mac, you’re using Finder, you’re using all of that.

And so for the, you know, for a typical RIA, let’s just say 10 employees, they typically have like two people that are power Mac users, right? Hey, those guys can use that and you know, they’ll be really happy.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the files. So that’s something that if you’re, if you’re not using SharePoint, you definitely want to use that. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Todd W. Darroca
And I’m a power Mac user folks. And I will say very hesitant at first, but after using it, it is, as David says, it’s pretty easy and it’s very compatible.

David Kakish
So well, and, and just to kind of get off the topic a little bit on the Mac users, what’s really interesting is, you know, a lot of people will say, Oh yeah, it works really well on a Mac. And they’ll have a solution that’s like a, a like, you know, a cloud computer or, you know, you’re using, you essentially use your MacBook as a dumb terminal, right? And not using it as a MacBook.

I go, if that’s, or Parallels, right, nothing and nothing wrong with that. If you want to use it that way, that’s great. But I wanted the MacBook so I can use, you know, the, the, the Mac operating, not to use it as a dumb terminal. So that’s kind of the big thing in the Mac users listening to us will know what that is.

OK All right, So talk about e-mail.

We talked about files and #3 it is instant messaging.

Todd W. Darroca
Did you ever use AOL Instant Messenger, David? Probably not.

David Kakish
Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t think so anyways. All right, anyway, that’s my AOL, but I don’t, I don’t, I’m trying to remember if I did. It was it was so long.

 

Todd W. Darroca
Anyways, back to Teams and their instant messaging.

David Kakish
All right, fantastic.

So Teams, let me talk a little bit about Teams. Teams is a, if you’re using Slack or if you’re using other third-party tools for instant messaging and you want to keep it, that’s great. Teams is available for you. Teams works really great. But again, Microsoft makes some great solutions, but I really hate their terminology and how they use that because it’s confusing.

And when you’re talking about Microsoft Teams, you can talk about Microsoft Teams as sort of an instant messaging. You can talk about Teams as a phone system. You can talk about Teams as potentially a replacement for Zoom, what I recommend for Teams and it works really well and that’s how we use it and that’s how a lot of our clients use it is an instant messaging tool. It’s phenomenal.

And then the other thing that I’d recommend is if you’re using something like Zoom, Teams could replace Zoom really well. But but there are some financial advisors because their end clients know Zoom, they continue to use Zoom, right. But for instance, if you’re talking about instant messaging, Teams is phenomenal.

Now, the fourth thing, this kind of leads into the fourth thing when I talk about your phone system. So really right now what a lot of Rias are using is what’s called what is known as a void phone system, which is voice over IP phone system.

So you’re probably familiar with like RingCentral 8 by 8 next Eva. You know, these are some of the names that are out there. A lot of people are asking, hey, do you recommend that we use Microsoft Teams as a phone system? And my answer is maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on how you’re using your phone system. More often than not, the answer of using Teams is your phone system.

As of right now, the answer is I probably would not recommend it for the following reasons.

Number one is you’re not able to use texting inside of Microsoft Teams. So let me let me pick on.

Let me pick on, by the way, do you see that thumbs up? That’s a new, I think from I don’t want to say anything about for our watchers on the podcast.

Todd W. Darroca
That’s a throwing up on David.

David Kakish
So Zoom, you know, we’re, it’s kind of ironic we’re doing this in Zoom and partners can use Zoom is a lot of our clients are very familiar with it, right? And, and, and I like it a lot for podcasts and stuff like that.

Anyways, one of the recent things I, I move my hands a lot. And then what Zoom does is it automatically detects it and it puts the IT puts the image and it throws me off.

So sorry about that.

Todd W. Darroca
No, you’re good. You’re good.

David Kakish
All right, so Teams is a phone system. Yes, you can use it. Yes, it is a good phone system. There’s two things, right?

Number one is one of the big challenges for a lot of RIAS is how do you do texting, right? Because a lot of times if you are texting clients and stuff like that, you are required to go ahead and archive that.

And if you’re using something like RingCentral or Zoom as your phone system, it allows you to text directly from Zoom as a phone system. And that is a huge value add for clients because now I can have, I could use Zoom as my phone system, but then it’s an app on my phone and I can text back and forth with clients.

Now on my personal iPhone, when I’m texting my wife or my daughter or you know, whoever, that doesn’t need to be archived. But when I’m texting a client directly out of the Zoom application on my iPhone, all of that can be archived.

So as of right now, Microsoft does not have the ability to do texting inside of Microsoft Teams.
And that’s kind of a big limitation for a lot of our advisors because something like a Zoom or a RingCentral, using it as your phone system really solves the problem of being able to text or do desktop, you know, texting and, and that works really well.

So, so we, again, from an instant messaging perspective, we really like Teams a lot as a phone system.
It’s good, but there are things that are better out there.

And then the other thing is, you know, Microsoft Teams is still in what I call bleeding edge, not necessarily leading edge. So they still have some bugs and kinks to work out, But you know, it’s it’s a good solution if you’re OK with some of the limitations I talked about.

Todd W. Darroca
Do you see any, any like future forecasts on when, like are they working toward that or do you have any inclination of what has probably happened like a year or two?

David Kakish
Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. So I don’t know the timeline, but obviously Microsoft’s velocity on when they’re working on new things is really, really fast. And I think I think in the next, you know, one to two years, my answer is going to be different. But as of right now, that’s kind of our position on that.

And, and again, just I know the texting is such a pain point for a lot of our IAS that something like a Zoom or like a RingCentral or 8 by 8, you know, solves the problem for them. And, and that’s why I’m hesitant to recommend Teams. But otherwise, like, if that’s not critical for you, Teams is actually a pretty good phone system too.

So OK, nice. All right. And and that’s what’s nice is, you know, we give you like the real deal.

You know, this is not marketing flaw for like, that’s right. It’s all fantastic, right? We tell you that, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly.

OK, yeah #5 all right, so #5 is securing access to your systems.

And if you’ve got a little bit of a technical background you might have heard of like Active Directory or Directory Services or Azure Active Directory, again, Microsoft has recently renamed that to Microsoft Intra ENTRA.

Remember what I told you Microsoft in the Navy, you know, So but basically intra yeah, if you if you what what this really has to do is securing access to your systems and to your identity. And think about it as secure access to your computer, secure access to your e-mail, secure access to your files, right.

Setting up multi factor authentication, having all that set up and actually Microsoft really really excels in this space and and they do really well but I think just at a really high level to explain it to the listener you have your own what’s called a Microsoft tenant.

What that is is that’s your private Microsoft network that’s for your RIA and then you have all the endpoints, the computers, the iPhones and so on to keep it simple.

You know on the right here I have the Microsoft tenant your your private network for your RIA and then on the other side in your office I have a laptop, you know a company laptop for your RIA.

So we’re making making sure your tenant is secure, making sure the laptop is secure and then the connection in between is secure.

So that’s kind of, you know, securing your your private network at Microsoft and also securing your laptop or your iPhone as an example.

But also when we talk about identity, what that means is Todd, you know, if, if I’m in Chicago and then within minutes I log in and I’m in Austin, it’s going to look at that and say, hang on, you know, there’s a red flag. It’s either going to force a multi factor authentication or it’s going to force a lockout or, you know, do something where it says, hey, you know, there’s a red flag. I’m going to force something to happen.

And then, you know, with a lot of our clients, by default, we just, you know, limit access outside the US because most of our I as we work with are 100% side inside the US. And so there’s no reason for anybody in France to have access to the systems like that.

17:13
So, so when I talk about secure access to your systems, if you think about that, it’s your physical systems, your computer, your laptop and so on, but also it is your Microsoft tenant, your private network at Microsoft, but also it is your identity, it’s your Microsoft account. So that’s something where you don’t need to get a third-party tool to do that. That’s something, you know, that we’re doing for you within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Todd W. Darroca

So, OK, well, we’re going to, yeah, let’s stay on security then and go to number six, which is endpoint security.

David Kakish
Exactly.

 

So I kind of touched upon that a little bit, but, and we’re going to, we’re going to include a link here in the show notes.

I know people like to talk smack about Microsoft a lot, but actually if you look at the Gartner reports, you know, Gartner is, is, is a big company that releases a lot of reports on, they, they call it the leader quadrant, like on different tech companies and different things. Microsoft is in the Magic quadrant. They’re in the top right-hand corner, which is where you want to be.

So for all the smack that people like to talk about Microsoft, actually Microsoft has some great solutions.

And when we talk about endpoint security, it’s securing that laptop, right? Because or that computer, because the assumption is, especially this day and age at your RIA, you’re working in the office, you’re working at home, you’re working in a hotel when you’re traveling, right? And so how do you, how do you, you know, provide that?

And, and the way I describe it is kind of like a bubble around the laptop that’s providing security. And Microsoft has something called defender for endpoint, defender for office, defender for identity.

You don’t need to go out and get Sentinel one or Crowdstrike or any of the other ones. Those are good. But you know, it’s something that we do provide you here. And actually Microsoft beats most of those third party vendors anyways.

 

So we like down a lot. So that’s that’s what we talk about when we talk about endpoint security.

Todd W. Darroca
OK, nice.

All right, let’s go down to number seven of our list of eight.

David Kakish
All right, Single sign on for web-based applications or SSO, not to be confused with the password manager, right, Password managers for managing, you know, passwords. A single sign on is so that you and your employees can securely sign into all of your web-based applications. Think red tail E money, Orion, Tamarack, you know, wealth box and and so on.

And so, what that does is you hire Mary, right? And once Mary starts, she can come and work.

Your RIA has a centralized dashboard for all the web-based applications and Mary can go in and securely access that.

You need to let go of Mary, right? We’re going to disable her main account and now she cannot access any of these other web-based applications. There’s some other really good players in this space like Octa and and and others, but again, you’re paying for this and you’re getting a really great solution. And again, in the Gartner report that Microsoft has Microsoft is again in that, you know, Magic Quadrant.

Why why look at some other options when you get a go ahead and you can do that. So I’ve kind of single sign on for web-based applications, really fantastic solution for Microsoft and that’s something we set up standard for our clients during the onboarding process.

Todd W. Darroca
OK, nice, nice.

Rounding out our list of eight, we have a #8 which is David Drumroll, please.

David Kakish
Sure. It’s it’s advanced features, advanced security features for your e-mail.

20:37
And we’ll talk about that is like archiving emails and teams, right?

20:42
And so I want to be careful.

20:44
I’m going to say archiving e-mail and archiving teams, but does not archive social media websites or texting, right? So I just want to put that out there.

20:52
And then e-mail encryption and then data loss prevention for e-mail.

20:56
And what that is, is, you know, if I send out an e-mail with a Social Security number or account number, it’ll automatically encrypted, send it out and then notify your CCO if you want that. And then eDiscovery.

So there’s a lot of these features that people are paying for, you know, third party tools like Smarsh, Global Relay and others.

This is something that we can do for you within the Microsoft ecosystem and meets the SEC and the Finreck compliance requirements.

So again, the advanced features for e-mail, e-mail features, archiving of e-mail and Microsoft Teams, e-mail encryption, data loss prevention for e-mail and then ediscovery. And those are like, I could, we could probably talk, we can have a podcast topic on each one of these, but I just kind of wanted to quickly list all these things.

So yeah, so I kind of, I feel like I went really fast and I covered a lot of things. But my point being is these are eight different things that you can do inside of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem that you don’t need to go out and pay for a third-party tool with the exception of Teams, right?

In terms of how you want to use Teams, right? That’s kind of my like, I want to be careful with that one, but the other really, really phenomenal solutions. And so hopefully you’ve got less silos.

You have tools that are better than third party tools, and, you know, you’re saving money. So yeah.

Todd W. Darroca

And so at the beginning of the podcast, we said, hey, you know, the question is, can I run my entire RA business on MS365?

And the answer is yes, you can. And David has walked us through those top eight, you know, areas of how you can, you know, not be so siloed.

And so David, what what can the person in the RA do or the, you know, the the business owner do after they listen to this podcast?

What are the top things you want them to do?

David Kakish
So let me just recap the eight things really quick.

22:52
And as I’m recapping them, if you’re listening to us, take notes and then go to your IT provider and say, hey, David and Todd talked about this. I want to I want to explore this and I want to test it.

So number one of his e-mail, number two was files on SharePoint #3 was instant messaging using Teams.

Number four was, you know, a phone system on Teams with the big* #5 was securing access to your systems, which is Microsoft calls Microsoft intra ENTRA.

Number six is endpoint security.

Number 7 is single sign on for web-based applications.

And then #8 the advanced security features for your e-mail.

Every single one of these that I mentioned, I can, I can assure you, if you’re listening to us, you’re probably paying for 3rd party tools that are part of your Microsoft subscription. Or even if they’re not part of your Microsoft subscription, you can easily upgrade your Microsoft subscription and get these tools.

And it’s going to be a lot less than a third-party tool. And by the way, like I know you’re saving money, but this is less about saving money.

It’s more about let’s have less silos and let’s have better security. And so I would take what, you know, jot down one of these things, go to your IT provider and say, hey, we wanna test, you know, one and two.

And what’s gonna happen is after you test it and you see how easy it is and how it’s not siloed and integrated, you’re going to become addicted and say, all right, let’s keep that feature. Or, you know, let’s get that going. And then obviously, we’re happy to help.

If you want any of that right there to reach out to us and we’re happy to help. So that’s what I would encourage you to do.

I cover 8 things. Take at least one and talked with him and ideally 3, you know, three or more, but I can, I can, I can tell you with great confidence, if you’re listening to us, I have over 90% confidence that there is one thing in here that you’re not using.

And I’d encourage you to do that.

So, and I can, I can say this, Todd, because I talk to a lot of RIAs every day, every week and so on.

So I, I know this from being out in the real world, not, you know, not behind your desk in an ivory tower.

Todd W. Darroca

Well, hey folks.

And all the stuff that the Gartner Magic Quadrant and a couple other key resources are inside the show notes below the podcast link or below the video here.

And so obviously we’re always happy and grateful that you are joining us. And we thank you for letting us into your cars, your house, or wherever you’re at listening to us.

So again, thanks for listening to the RA Tech Talk podcast brought to you by RIA Workspace. And for more podcasts, again, this is episode 14. So we’ve got thirteen others of them, other of them.

Is that the right sentence?

Anyways, there’s thirteen more on the website at RA workspace.com. So check those out under the Learning Center and feel free to reach out to us with any questions or topics you’d like us to cover.

And of course, stay tuned for more RIA Tech Talk insights in our next episode.

So for David and myself, thanks so much everybody and have a great day.