When asked whether industry funds had a “psycho-graphic” understanding of its members, Equipsuper's executive officer of strategic marketing and communications, Geoff Brooks, told InvestorDaily that as a sector, industry funds are “nowhere near that”.
“But at least if you understand [that] then you can set your strategy accordingly,” Mr Brooks said.
Equipsuper has, over the past nine months, been building a data analytics platform so the group can do more “granular segmentation” of its membership. But building these platforms is only the beginning; beyond this, industry funds must develop deeper behavioural profiling of their members, according to the fund.
“The industry has to improve segmentation work, and get beyond demographics, which is basically a carve-up by age or a carve-up by account balance and start looking at psycho-graphics,” Mr Brooks said.
This is a difficult thing for the industry fund sector as it has grown up in a much more structured environment, he added.
“The thing is, with industry super, it has come out of a corporate superannuation environment where the key relationship is with the employer and fund, and that is still a very important relationship,” he said. “But the thing is we are moving into a world that increasingly looks like a retail world. There are more people exercising choice.”
This retail world is challenging many of the old assumptions that industry supers have about their membership, Mr Brooks claimed.
Industry funds have to understand members’ behaviour across generations, because there are 35 year-olds who have the same level of connection and interest in superannuation as a 55 year-old. To assume that interest varies because of age is old-fashioned, according to Mr Brooks.
Equipsuper believes this is an “inevitable consequence of superannuation becoming a significant sector of the economy and being pushed up higher on the political agenda”, and it will require funds to have “more member engagement at varying levels.”
