Commonwealth Group is optimistic about the future. In anticipation of growing their Worlds Funds business, Commonwealth has swapped its fund transfer agent system from Phoenix to Tustin, California-based Envision Financial Systems' PowerAgent product.

"One of our clients said that Envision would enable us to do so much more reporting...our clients say 'this is an enormous leap forward," says Frank Trice, director of marketing at World Funds. "We heard from a number of people in and around the business that they were innovative and creative," Trice adds.

"The fact that [PowerAgent] is an open system with more functionality" appealed to Commonwealth, says Satnam Gambhir, president of Envision. For instance, Commonwealth's prior system required manual adjustments based on a load structure of a fund, says Gambhir.

The move is also a selling point for Commonwealth, says Trice. "We want to be able to tell our clients that we have the latest and greatest and are the most technologically-advanced," says Trice.

Commonwealth will also leverage the new system to create new and different products -- outside of SMAs -- for their money managers.

Although it may be changing transfer agent platforms, Commonwealth has no plans to change its tried-and-true message of intimate relationships and speciality managers to achieve more growth.

"We think that going forward, there is going to be a place for these specialty-type money managers...and a more intimate relationship."

The company's approach also manifests itself in how they develop relationships with intermediaries and how it chooses those intermediaries. "We don't want relationships with one thousand brokers, we want relationships with a dozen or two dozen brokers," says Trice.

"Our clients have tolds us 'we need to feel like a big fish in your pond,'" he adds.  

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