Highlights and Trends in the HRO Market for H1 2013: Part 2

Amy L. Gurchensky, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Last week, I zeroed in on specific market activity within the payroll, learning and RPO service lines. This week, I’ll take a closer look at H1 2013 activity within benefits administration and MPHRO as well as provide some insights on what to expect in H2 2013 based on NelsonHall’s recent HRO Confidence Index.

Benefits Administration

Contract signings aside, there has been a plethora of activity within benefits administration in H1 2013, including:

• New offerings:
  • Mercer launched a private benefits exchange, Mercer Marketplace
  • Buck Consultants launched an automatic enrollment offering in the U.K.
  • Secova launched a Coordination of Benefits (COB) audit offering to coordinate benefits with insurance carriers
• Acquisitions: Wageworks acquired Crosby Benefit Systems and Benefit Concepts to strengthen its H&W administration offering, including reimbursement account and COBRA administration
• Partnerships:
  • Fidelity partnered with Extend Health, a Towers Watson company, to provide retiree healthcare services
  • JLT Employee Benefits partnered with Vielife for health and wellbeing services in the U.K.
• New technologies:
  • Xerox launched an account-based benefits portal, BenefitWallet, to assist with managing multiple health accounts on one platform, including HSAs, HRAs, FSAs, HIAs (health/wellness incentive accounts) and other specialized services
  • Aon Hewitt launched an absence management tool, 360 Absence Solutions, to help clients manage absence-related costs, compliance risks, the administrative burden and lost productivity
• Educational resources:
  • Mercer and ADP both launched websites to provide information on healthcare reform
  • Ceridian launched an auto-enrollment knowledge center in the U.K.

MPHRO

In recent years, the MPHRO market has been relatively quiet in terms of contract announcements and H1 2013 was no exception. However, my last MPHRO research study, published in February 2013, revealed that the market is very much alive with new wins and contract renewals from all the major vendors, including IBM and Accenture. In fact, IBM recently won a new seven-year, multi-country MPHRO contract, which was bundled with F&A outsourcing services. Other wins include ADP and Marriott Vacations Worldwide for core HR, payroll, time & labor management and talent management covering ~9.2k employees.

Many vendors have been focused on their strategies for expansion, including Aon Hewitt with its acquisition of OmniPoint Workday Services. Although still early, NelsonHall expects ADP to make inroads in LATAM with its MPHRO services since it added RPO capabilities in this region from its acquisition of The RightThing and now expands its payroll footprint from the Payroll S.A. acquisition.

H2 2013

So what does the rest of the year have in store? NelsonHall’s recent HRO Confidence Index survey finds that overall expectations for HRO revenue growth remain at the same level as those reported for the last five quarters; with payroll leading followed by RPO. Top industry sectors for HRO services include healthcare, pharmaceuticals and high-tech. By geography, vendors have reported increased confidence for revenue growth in Central and Eastern Europe and Central and Latin America.

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the year unfolds for HRO.

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Highlights and Trends in the HRO Market for H1 2013: Part 1

Amy L. Gurchensky, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

It’s hard to believe that H1 2013 is complete, which makes it an ideal time to recap highlights and trends from the HRO world this year.

Overall Activity

There was a healthy number of new contracts awarded across all HRO service lines in H1 2013. In addition, renewals and contract extensions signed were consistent with H1 2012. There was, however, an increase in activity with organizations changing their existing service provider, particularly within benefits administration and RPO.

For the last few years, attention has been on the mid-market (500-10k employees), among other things, as an area for growth within HRO. Quarter-over-quarter, mid-market activity has made strides relative to the large market. In fact, in H1 2013, the majority of activity reported was from the mid-market.

Beyond HRO, the number of HR software contracts signed globally was up substantially compared to H1 2012. For example, in the U.S., ADP was awarded a contract for its Vantage HCM platform, including HR, payroll, benefits and onboarding modules, by The Paradies Shops covering 4k employees. In the U.K., Ceridian gained traction with its automatic enrollment module with Asda for 175k employees and WH Smith for 16k employees.

Payroll

Despite being a mature service line, payroll outsourcing does not disappoint. The biggest news reported in H1 2013 would have to be ADP’s acquisition of Payroll S.A., which will expand its LATAM payroll capabilities to Chile, Argentina and Peru. ADP already had in-country services in Brazil, and had capabilities through GlobalView and Streamline to serve multinationals in other LATAM countries.

Other news within payroll includes Acrede opening an office in Singapore to expand its global payroll reach into Asia-Pacific. Growth opportunities in the region include Japan and South Asia-Pacific.

RPO

The RPO market continues to be a hot one to watch. Contracts were awarded in various countries, including the U.S., U.K. and China, and ~20% of contract activity in H1 2013 was from multi-country deals.

The level of M&A activity was consistent with H1 2012, but the level of RPO partnerships has dwindled. Nevertheless, RPO vendors were busy expanding service offerings and delivery capabilities, and launching new websites. Some examples include:

• Randstad Sourceright launching an RPO integrated assessment program
• Manpower U.S. launching a multi-channel delivery model
• Ochre House launching a COE to drive innovation
• Randstad Sourceright opening a shared services center in Budapest
• Hays launching a new mobile website
• AMN Healthcare launching a redesigned website.

Although technically within H2, it is timely to mention the Pinstripe and Ochre House merger.

Learning

After a rather long lull, the learning BPO market has shown many signs of improvement. New contracts include Raytheon and GM Korea for content development and training administration services, and delivery of sales and non-technical training.

GP continued its acquisition frenzy focused on strengthening and expanding its geographic footprint with Prospero Learning Solutions (Canada) and Lorien Engineering Solutions (U.K. and Poland). Not to mention Capita’s acquisition of KnowledgePool.

Stay tuned next week for more highlights and trends from H1 2013 that are specific to benefits administration and MPHRO. I’ll also share some insights on what to expect in H2 2013 based on NelsonHall’s recent HRO Confidence Index survey.

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H1 2012 HRO: Who Did What in the Large Market?

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

There was a good amount of announced HRO contract awards of many sizes and services in the first half of 2012, especially in the large market. A nice volume of new work coming online will provide future revenue support for HRO service providers, where earnings have recently been lower than in 2011.

Learning: finally announced some major deals including:

• Capita Workplace Services: awarded a competitive win for a £250m contract by the Cabinet Office to manage civil service training services in the U.K.
• Serco: won awards with the Army in both the U.K. and the U.S.; it won a scope extension valued at $38m by the U.S. Army and a £55m training contract by the British Army
• Genpact: won  a learning services contract by Johnson Controls, extending its record of recent learning wins; last year, it won a 7 year MPHRO contract with Nissan that included learning and it also won a 5 year content development contract by JobSkills in India.

MPHRO: activity was spread around nicely with ADP, Aon Hewitt, NorthgateArinso, and Logica all bringing in MPHRO contracts. One notable deal was IBM’s multi-tower BPO and IT deal with Cemex valued at $1bn; it includes finance and accounting BPO, HR BPO, IT infrastructure management, application development, and maintenance.

RPO:  continued to see a high volume of new contracts spread across many vendors. There were also two of the largest awards ever in RPO:

• ManpowerGroup: awarded a $400m five year contract extension with the Australian Defense Force, continuing a relationship that started in 2003
• Capita: won a £440m 10 year recruiting partnership contract by the British Army; it will also deliver supporting technology for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, partnering with advertising agency JWT for recruitment marketing and with Kenexa for assessment and recruitment technology.

Benefits administration: contract awards were announced by Aon Hewitt, Empyrean, HP, and Xafinity Paymaster. Fidelity Investments reported the highest volume with DC contracts adding 522k new participants to its base of over 15m participants served. It also made major renewals and brought in new competitive wins. This is Fidelity’s strongest first half sales period in the last five years.

Payroll: deals in the U.K. led the way with awards going to Ceridian, Equiniti ICS, Liberata, and Mouchel. ADP won a multi-country contract from HP and will implement its GlobalView for payroll and Enterprise eTIME system for time and labor management for ~130,000 employees across 40 countries in Asia Pacific (excluding India), Europe, and the Americas (excluding U.S.) over the next five years.

With pipelines still healthy, the second half of 2012 should bring in a year of solid HRO growth and results. Congratulations to all!

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