Retirement Savings Plan Administration Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for HR Services and its sub-segments such as Retirement Savings Plan Administration are at an interesting intersection. New locations and vendors are emerging as cost effective suppliers of Retirement Savings Plan Administration, offering an opportunity to widen the supplier base and gain further negotiation leverage with incumbent suppliers.

Even though global population is increasing, the availability of adequately trained talent pool is reducing in many geographies. Lack of skilled in-house manpower continues to be the largest factor for hiring of Retirement Savings Plan Administration. Companies are designing processes where the internal talent can work on the most value-adding activities and all non-core activities can be handed over to a third-party.

The market has undergone several structural changes including M&As and vertical integration efforts of suppliers. This has resulted in some issues such as erosion of previously established supplier relationships but has also opened new opportunities to onboard new suppliers with a wider range of offerings.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Retirement Savings Plan Administration is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Retirement Savings Plan Administration procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Retirement Savings Plan Administration procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers should engage with suppliers that automate the process of handling any claims or requests through cloud-based software. Once initiated by an employee of buyer organization, suppliers' staff or the system itself can provide guidance for next steps. All necessary stakeholders can check the real-time status through web-based platform and take actions accordingly.

Employers are focusing on providing employee-friendly interfaces (such as mobile-enabled services and web portals) to access and manage benefits and options available to employees. Suppliers who have the technical capabilities to seamlessly integrate with the employer's internal systems without comprising the data protection should be preferred.

Large organizations are opting to streamline and centralize their personnel-related administration functions at the global level to realize efficiencies and consistency in the employee benefits and related policies.

Retirement Savings Plan Administration procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Retirement Savings Plan Administration procurement. Some examples include: