Location strategy for a Financial Services Firm

Client Overview 

Client is a Fortune 500 member that is a leader in the retail financial advice market and the nation’s largest independent broker/dealer with $7B in revenue and $1.2T assets under management 

Situation 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Client’s Technology organization transitioned to hiring primarily remote workers, resulting in the dispersion of employees away from the three primary office locations. This shift to a largely remote workforce introduced several challenges, including stifled career growth for early-career talent and underrepresented groups, operational inefficiencies, and decreased spontaneous innovation. The CTIO wanted support in implementing a hybrid return to office strategy 

Our Engagement 

The Aberdeen team was brought in to develop the Technology organization’s return-to-office strategy and assess the necessity of establishing two new locations to serve as the organization’s extended technology hub. 

Leveraging the company’s internal data, Aberdeen mapped the Technology organization’s current employees and determined their distance to the nearest office location to determine the feasibility of leveraging one of the existing offices as a hub. 

Leveraging our proprietary Strategic Location Assessment Framework, which assesses quantitative and qualitative factors of a metropolitan area, our team was able to identify several prime candidates for a new technology hub location. 

Aberdeen recommended three locations to the CTIO, who ultimately chose to open two new hubs in the Northeast and Southwest United States.