Step into any financial panning office of any large dealer group in Australia and you will experience different approaches in firstly, the way the discovery process is done and secondly, the actual strategy recommendations.

However where strategies are close, the product outcomes are likely to be similar. The majority of the products are likely to be managed funds - and now predominantly delivered via some sort of platform.

But the actual fund managers and blends of fund managers will likely be quite close. Dealer groups will only use funds that are positively rated by their chosen research house. Whilst it’s not uncommon to see funds rated “sell” and...