Cecilia Farrow is the founder and executive director of Triplejump, a human capital risk specialist franchise turned software developer.

She started the firm in 2007.

Advisers in 2014 would find it very difficult to remain independent and carry the costs of compliance, marketing and any business expansion, she said. “You’re going to have to be a pretty special individual to build a business in this environment. Unless you’ve got a really distinguishable value proposition, this would be a hard market to be in.”

It was not feasible for most advisers to deal with a full range of providers and offer a wide range of products to clients because they would not get good enough remuneration terms, she said. Instead, they ended up focusing on one or two providers, which limited what they could then provide their customers.

“It’s logical for independent advisers to be part of some form of network.”

She said, depending on what an adviser wanted to focus on or their plans for the business, that could be an aggregator, a dealer group or a franchise such as Triplejump that would allow advisers to share branding and resources.

Triplejump now has 14 franchises across the country but Farrow said the firm was taking a very targeted approach to any new additions. “They have to be businesses that have got a professional service offer and are looking for an opportunity at that very high end of professional, compliant, best-practice advice.”

Being part of a wider network also allowed advisers to bring on younger recruits, she said.

Triplejump was largely hiring university graduates to work in its business.

“Compared to the traditional risk sector, the profile of our people is very different. It’s a very young distribution team compared to the industry average and very highly qualified.”

Many other advice businesses recognised the need to bring young people in but did not have the infrastructure to do so, Farrow said. “They want people to come in on commission, build up a client base, and then they want to own that client base. They don’t have the resources to help advisers build themselves into the business… a franchise model offers all that support.”

Triplejump is preparing to list on the stockmarket in the middle of this year.