The Evolution of TBO Deals: Part II

In my blog earlier this week, I outlined four approaches that have led to the creation of TBO deals. Let’s take a look at some examples for each approach. As you read through, note the aspects that apply to the evolution of any HRO deal and client relationship.

The traditional big bang approach: Approximately 15 years ago, Aon Hewitt was awarded a TBO contract by 3M that includes defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC), and retiree health and welfare (H&W) administration services. Recently, the TBO contract was expanded to include H&W administration for active employees and its retiree healthcare exchange services. In total, Aon Hewitt serves 80,000 active employees (30,000 in the U.S. and 50,000 internationally) and >25,000 retirees.

The big bang approach version 2.0: An example of this approach is Mercer’s TBO contract with an unnamed automobile manufacturer. Mercer had a long-term relationship with this client for retirement, health and benefits (H&B), and communication consulting services. This client has five locations in the U.S. that have separate benefit systems for its ~25,000 employees. The majority of its pension and H&B plans were administered in-house, while some were outsourced. Mercer was subsequently awarded the TBO contract to streamline operations and provide a consistent employee experience throughout the company.

The mass consolidation approach: Until November 2010, Office Depot relied on three different service providers: Vanguard for 401(k) and deferred compensation plans; NorthgateArinso — as a result of the Convergys acquisition — for H&W administration; and Morgan Stanley for stock-plan administration. Fidelity was consequently awarded this TBO contract and is serving 17,000 participants for retirement savings plans and 20,000 participants for H&W services.

The step-up approach: A recent example of this type is Towers Watson’s contract with The Dow Chemical Company. Towers Watson began administering Dow’s DB plan ten years ago. In 2009, after Dow acquired ROHM and Haas, it began to administer H&W services for ROHM and Haas’ ~12,000 employees and retirees. As of February 2012, Towers Watson will be administering H&W services including annual enrollment for 66,000 participants at Dow.

The demand for TBO services will continue and will likely take the shape of the latter two approaches discussed above. The overarching lesson is that HRO service providers can end up with a TBO or MPHRO deal with long-term growth from multiple starting points.

Amy L. Gurchensky, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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Providing Value Through HRO Research

HRO service providers can derive significant value from producing and sharing research information. Vendors can show thought leadership, establish service and subject matter creditability, and reinforce brand differentiation, even as they gain a source of marketing materials and a lead-in to client discussions, as well as some free public relations coverage.

Much HRO research is designed to directly reinforce the need for the services and consulting offered by the service provider. A recent article by Ceridian discusses whether U.S. employers will drop employee health care plans when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) coverage requirements become effective in 2013. After providing some PPACA information, Ceridian moves to support services it offers, specifically consumer driven-health plans and health saving accounts.

When providers are not conducting primary research, it is important to reference other reputable resources. In this case, Ceridian quotes America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which recently reported that enrollment in Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) had reached 11.4m people in January 2011, a more than 14% increase over 2010. According to the AHIP, HSA enrollments have nearly doubled in the last three years and large group coverage was up 26% last year. Ceridian also quoted its executives, one of its own statistics, and ended with links to its web pages on CDHCs.

This is a solid, but perhaps overly focused on service offerings and marketing, communication designed to help it further tap a market where only 11m of a potential 160m are currently enrolled in an HSA.

A second example comes from a Mercer press release about the impact of automatic enrollment on defined contribution savings rates. It also directly supports Mercer services and it additionally offers information that is a bit more consultative.

Mercer used its own database of its 1.2m DC plan participants to show the positive impact of automatic enrollment and automatic increases on contribution rates. Participants who were automatically enrolled in their plan and use the automatic contribution increase have a 25% higher contribution rate (4.4%) than those who do not use the feature (3.5%).  Even better savings rate results come from self-enrolled participants (7.4%), and those who do self-directed increases, had the highest rate of all (8.5%). Company executives are used to further the messaging by commenting that those who self-enroll and set their own contribution rate contribute nearly two and half times more than those who are automatically enrolled.

With a bit more subtle communication, Mercer is establishing that it is a major player in DC by sharing information on what its 1.2m participants are actually doing that can help employers make policy decisions, support additional consulting, and reinforce the need to keep up proactive employee communications programs (which is a brand differentiator for Mercer) to support maximum effectiveness of the offered benefits of a DC plan.

Do you look at your vendor as a trusted and value-added source of information?

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

Mercer 2011 Analyst Forum – Style and Substance

I enjoy HRO analyst forums, particularly the in-person presentations and the chance for casual conversation with service provider executives and fellow analysts. Live events showcase the personality of the host company. Personality comes through in who is invited, what is said, what is not said, and the venue itself. All have a tone that subtly provides context for content. Some are very nice and some are almost austere. None are luxurious parties.  Apparently HR BPO analysts do not rate that high!

Mercer’s session was on the high-end of venues; the meeting was seemingly casual and relaxed while still guiding attention where desired. The analyst meeting and accompanying client conference was well-prepared and well-presented, providing a consistent profile of Mercer, its style, and confidence. Even the smallest touches reinforced the company’s image of management competency, teamwork, and expertise in HR benefits.

Mercer is a $3.5bn benefits service provider with 27k clients and 20k employees with offices in over 40 countries, serving large market clients primarily based in the U.S. and mid-market clients worldwide. Consulting services bring in the greatest revenue at 2.4bn, followed by outsourcing at $700m, and investment services at a rapidly rising $400m. The largest outsourcing client segment is DC, followed by DB, and H&W. The company has seen significantly more interest in the last 18 months in its newest segment, absence management, with a small but growing base of clients. Mercer Q1 2011 revenues were $922m, up 9% year-over-year, 5% in constant currency compared to Q1 2010, outsourcing was flat in constant currency.

Strategically, Mercer is focusing on increasing revenues and building scale by leveraging existing client relationships to cross-sell, expand into select adjacent market opportunities, and build bundled solutions. These are not uncommon HRO strategies, but it is ability to execute that sets apart the leaders.

Reliance on its ability to work collaboratively across its business segments will be a critical success factor, a style that was amply present throughout the Mercer sessions and is also seen in its several new product offerings.  One is a new solution called Human Capital Connect, which is bringing together consulting and research expertise, software and web technology, and various forms of education to address metrics and analytics in a way that will help HR teams establish the needed foundation of HR information, data and report access, and understand and provide a roadmap to more advanced levels.

According to the soon to be published Mercer 2011 “What’s Working” report, employees are putting more importance on the value of benefits in the mix of total compensation. And we know that employers continue to be very cost conscious even as they return focus to talent management.

With a crowded field of top-tier benefits providers, including Mercer, which one will be able to best capitalize on the opportunities?

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall

The Yellow Brick Road to Financial Growth in Benefits Outsourcing

There are a variety of ways to grow HRO service provider income. Well-traveled roads include winning new clients or expanding services with existing clients. Another avenue is to cross-leverage consulting and outsourcing to build revenues for other service lines. Now, a new path has emerged and it looks like a yellow brick road to generating revenues: provide advisory services directly to defined contribution (DC) plan participants and not just to the plan sponsors.

According to The Financial Engines National 401(k) Evaluation report, approximately three out of four participants are not on track to comfortably retire by age 65 (i.e., they can’t replace 70% of their pre-retirement income with their 401(k) and social security). In addition, 34% do not have diversified portfolios and/or have inappropriate risk levels and 39% of participants do not contribute enough to even receive the full employer match. With DC plans replacing traditional pension plans for many employees, effective participation has taken on increased importance.

Participant DC service options were greatly expanded by the Department of Labor’s regulations, starting with the Pension Plan Act of 2006. Now, DC plans can offer automatic enrollment into qualified default investment alternatives, automatic saving escalations, and investment advisory services. Great, but the regulations are complex and are still being clarified and there are fiduciary responsibilities that must be addressed to provide a safe harbor to the plan sponsors and appropriate protections for the advisors. For BAO providers who have the expertise and fear not to tread on a road still under a bit of construction, this is a growth opportunity.

Amy Gurchensky, one of my NelsonHall HRO colleagues, just added tracking service coverage of Aon Hewitt’s new integrated advisory offering for its DC plan participants through its subsidiary, Aon Hewitt Financial Advisors. Aon Hewitt continues to expand its wealth management and retirement financial services for employers and participants. In 2010, before the merger with Aon Consulting, Hewitt had acquired the investment advisory firm EnnisKnupp.

Aon Hewitt selected Financial Engines to be the sub-advisor and provider of the advisory platform. As Amy notes in her analysis, Financial Engines also provides services for ACS, a Xerox Company, Fidelity, Mercer and others like ING and J.P. Morgan. It is important then that Aon Hewitt is wrapping the standard third party offering in with its own materials so it will be able to extend a new service bundle that creates differentiation.

The bulk of retirement investment consulting revenues will continue to come from services to the plan sponsors, but adding a new road to growth in ancillary services is valuable and this one looks particularly golden. Given the millions of participants with the major BAO players, participant investment services will be a valuable win-win for the employers, participants, and service providers.

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall

Where the Action is At in HRO

As a follow-up to my colleague Linda Merritt’s blog last week titled “HRO is Settling in for a Good 2011,” I thought I’d write about where the most action is at thus far. If you were thinking recruitment, good guess, but it is actually benefits administration leading the way in the number of announced contracts in 2011.

In addition to Mercer being awarded a pensions administration contract by Loomis UK Ltd., which Linda also wrote about Mercer in her February 23rd blog, a number of providers have announced important contract awards, including:

Fidelity Investments, after two big five-year contract awards in Q4 2010 by AT&T and Office Depot, in January Fidelity was awarded a five-year contract renewal for total retirement outsourcing (TRO) services by BP America, Inc., a subsidiary of BP. Fidelity will continue to provide administration and recordkeeping for BP America’s 95,000 DB and 48,000 DC and nonqualified deferred compensation plans for U.S. employees. Later in the same month, Fidelity was awarded another five-year contract renewal for TRO services by HP in North America. Under this deal, Fidelity will service all of HP’s retirement plan participants, adding 162,500 participants from EDS who were previously serviced by other providers. In total, Fidelity will serve more than 135,000 DC participants and more than 192,000 DB participants for HP.

Aon Hewitt, in February announced it had gone live with eight new benefits administration clients since the beginning of the year. Across these clients, Aon Hewitt has implemented 12 services including DB, DC, and H&W and has added more than 325,000 participants and retirees to its base of 22 million participants.

Capita, in February was appointed as a preferred supplier for the administration of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) by the U.K. Department of Education. This is a seven-year, £80m contract renewal that starts in October 2011 and includes an additional three-year option. A week later, on a smaller scale, Capita won a three-year occupational health services contract by Technip. Capita will provide its Wellness Assessment Surveillance Portal, which gives centralized visibility of health surveillance records to Technip’s 3,000 personnel in Aberdeen and offshore locations.

So will benefits administration continue to be hot this year? I believe it will, though it might be hard-pressed to exceed RPO for the full year in terms of number of contract awards.  As evidenced in the examples above, there are huge volumes of benefit plan participants that are serviced and in today’s economy, clients cannot afford internal resources to manage these programs, nor do they have the expertise and most up-to-date technology. Handling benefits administration is vitally important to employees and retirees, whether it’s the ease of an annual online enrollment or the knowledge of a service center professional in answering DB and DC questions. And it’s not just large companies that need this expertise.  As I wrote in my February 25th blog, mid-market HRO is rapidly growing as well.

A final thought about what will continue to drive contract awards in benefits administration is that buyers are increasingly looking to consolidate their outsourcing services under one provider, as evidenced by Fidelity’s contract with Office Depot. This is a trend I believe will continue and from an employee and retiree perspective is a good thing. I was fortunate enough to leave my long-term employer four years ago with H&W benefits, DB & DC plans, and voluntary benefits, of which all four were provided by four different vendors. Sounds like I should play the number four!

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall

Benefits Administration Outsourcing — Mercer has an Ace in the Hole

Mercer held its cards during the 2010 benefits administration merger poker marathon while others drew cards to fill in service lines, add scale, and expand geographically. Satisfied with its service mix and global coverage, Mercer decided to play its own hand with a benefits portfolio of consulting, outsourcing, and investment management to leverage growth.

Revenues for Q4 2010 were $910m, up 5% in constant currency and outsourcing was up 5% to $180m. Full year revenues came in at $3,478m, up 2% and outsourcing was up 3% to $671m. The U.S. led with the largest share of growth and Canada, U.K., Latin America and Asia Pacific also showed gains.

Mercer’s hand is stronger than it may appear from the 2010 results. While the first half of the year was slow, Q3 and Q4 showed accelerated recovery from the recession. Health and benefits consulting revenues increased 8% for the second quarter in a row. Rewards, talent, and communications consulting was up 15% for Q4, compared to only 2% for the year. The recent positive trends indicate that employers are ready to address employee benefits issues.

Mercer was awarded 25 new outsourcing contracts in 2010, which crossed the full service line-up of DC, DB, and health and welfare. One deal was for TRO (DB + DC) and four were for TBO (DB/DC and H&W). FOX Entertainment and Halliburton will be new global services clients. In 2009, Mercer also signed 25 new contracts. The key difference between the past two years is the number of participants added. In 2009, it was ~400k and in 2010 it doubled to ~800k. In addition, renewals are exceeding expectations, which together with the new clients should up the ante on outsourcing revenue growth for 2011. This is all good, but the real magic in having a balanced portfolio of services is if you can cross leverage each component to strengthen the whole.

The added advantage for Mercer, its ace in the hole, may be its capability to coordinate and collaborate across service lines on behalf of its clients. For example, it is seeing an uptick with bundling consulting and outsourcing services because of the close relationship. Escalating health care costs and compliance complexity (even with the U.S. health care reform wild card) continue to attract joint consulting and service opportunities, especially for the mid-market where the new business pipeline is filling nicely. Areas under cost pressure that can bring hard dollar savings, like total absence management and wellness initiatives, should also be places to double down for growth.

Mercer’s clients have a single relationship manager, no matter how many services and locations supported, who is measured on client satisfaction, not revenues. The same set of consistent performance elements and satisfaction with all areas touching the client are rolled up at the account level.

Mercer’s client focus is more than business strategy, it is cultural and structural. What’s your HRO ace in the hole?

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall