TD Ameritrade Institutional has expanded its practice management programs in 2012, targeting independent registered investment advisors. The new offerings are built on TD Ameritrade's Roadmap business consulting program, which helps advisors grow their businesses and become more productive.

"Advisors on the TD Ameritrade Institutional platform who participated in the Roadmap program over a 12-month period experienced nearly double the growth rate (17 percent) of non-Roadmap users (9 percent)," said George Tamer, director of strategic relationships, TD Ameritrade Institutional. "These compelling results are achieved by translating high-level business goals, such as improving client satisfaction, into definable and executable tasks. By sharpening the goal-setting process and focusing on executing a few tasks at a time, we've seen advisors experience significant progress."

According to the latest TD Ameritrade Institutional RIA Sentiment Survey, two-thirds of RIAs say their top goal in 2012 is to grow their firms by adding clients and increasing revenue. The survey reveals RIAs are also focused on improving profitability (41 percent), client satisfaction (41 percent) and productivity (19 percent) in the New Year. Inefficiencies in business operations and procedures (29 percent) and personnel issues (29 percent) top the list of hurdles RIAs want to overcome over the next year, followed by poor time management (25 percent) and technology issues (19 percent). In an effort to meet theses top business challenges, more than half of RIAs say they will look to upgrade technology (52 percent), followed by providing training for staff (49 percent) and outsourcing (33 percent), wherever possible.