IST Project and Project Reflection
Exploring Careers in Information Systems and Technology
By Nick Conoway
Introduction
My current job trajectory is to become a financial advisor.
A financial advisor creates custom financial plans to help achieve the financial goals of their clients.
Background of Career Path
Financial advisors create financial plans that consist of managing, developing, and constantly adjusting the following:
Stock and Real-estate portfolios. Ensuring clients risk tolerances are being kept and maximizing the return on their capital.
Retirement and Philanthropy plans. Helping clients save and distribute their money after they finish their career.
Insurance and Tax strategies. Ensuring clients are most effectively “playing the game” and saving on insurance and tax loopholes.
Specific Application - Ethics
Integrity, trust, and confidentiality are the cornerstones for financial advisors.
Not only is ethics a moral obligation for financial advisors but it’s federally regulated. Financial advisors have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of their clients. Financial advisors have to act with a duty of care and a duty of loyalty. They must put the interest of the clients first, appropriately allocate and protect their assets, and not engage in self-dealing.
This means when financial advisors create portfolios, recommend investments, or sale financial services they must do so with careful consideration to the clients risk profile and goals.
Specific Applications – Information Security
Information Security is vital to the work of financial advisors.
As it applies to technology and security, financial advisors must ensure their client’s information and access to control of their accounts and portfolios is protected and private.
As a financial advisor I must be aware of security threats that we learned during this class such as: common human errors, social engineering, software attacks, viruses, and phishing attacks.
Specific Applications – Data & Knowledge Management
A key asset to financial advisor is the data available to them.
This data, as discussed in class, can come from internal, personal, and external sources. Financial advisors choose securities to put in a client’s portfolio by analyzing data from external sources such as company financial reports, economic data, and news surrounding the company.
They also use personal sources and consider their own opinions regarding a company, the market, and overall trends. They may also develop and interpret their own data or create models that would be an internal source.
Specific Applications - Business Analytics
Financial advisors follow the business analytics process and business analytics tools that we have learned in this class.
Financial advisors must consider what has happened, what could happen, and what they should do to best protect and grow their clients assets.
After financial advisors gather the data they use descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics to drive their decision making.
The business analytic tools used are Excel, OLAP, and Python. They are used to create models and ratios that help financial advisors understand the overall position of the company, economy, or investment.
Specific Applications – Wireless, Mobile Commerce
The job of a Financial Advisor has been enhanced since the introduction of wireless networks, higher bandwidths, and mobile commerce.
Wireless networks and mobile commerce has allowed financial advisors to receive and react to news as fast as they can. Prior to the advent of wireless access would take minutes or even hours to buy or sell shares stock or securities if you were not physically located at the exchange. The transaction time now is milliseconds and can be done from anywhere in the world that have internet connection which allows financial advisor to react quickly to bad and good news and allows they to better serve their clients.
For example, if GE reports that one of their factories caught fire, a financial advisor could sell their shares quickly and protect their clients from losses before the market as the chance to process the information.
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed my presentation!
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