5 Trends in Retirement Plan Communications: Part Four - Technologies of Transformation
This article is part four in a five-part series covering key trends in Retirement Plan Communications. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated as we work together to close the retirement savings gap for all Americans.
In the first three posts, I discussed successful approaches to communicating with participants, namely by focusing on personalization and accessibility. In this post, I discuss back-end concerns about how to expedite participant communications for better experiences and also to ensure greater accuracy, transparency and compliance.
In the retirement space, consider that the average plan experiences six changes per year. These changes need to be communicated and accurate plan documents archived for retrieval. This creates operational challenges for many plan administrators. Fortunately, a myriad new technologies are fundamentally reshaping the way we work and provide opportunities for plan administrators to streamline the process for communicating and archiving plan changes.
Many plan providers are now upgrading and updating systems, processes and infrastructures to introduce greater efficiency into their workflows. Ideally, you should look for ways to implement an automated workflow that leverages similar communications programs to reduce manual processes. Like in anything else, manual processes are time-intensive and error-prone. By automating programs and leveraging repeatable programs, product and communication teams can sharpen their focus on strategic activities rather than on operations and compliance.
To get there faster, one option is to outsource your entire communications program. Outsourcing automation can drastically cut costs and speed up your processes. Advanced, cloud-based systems that have been developed to ensure greater accuracy and transparency are in the market now. Your firm doesn’t have to create one in-house.
An article in Forbes shows that by using cloud infrastructures, companies can easily reduce costs, improve system availability, bring products and technology to their markets faster and make faster and smarter decisions. Companies migrating to the cloud (either are just starting or are some way through the process) are likely to have a hybrid infrastructure; this allows for more flexibility and frees up resources that you are able to invest elsewhere.
Providers are not the only ones who enjoy the benefits of the cloud – it makes life easier for participants, too. The top three reasons that customers use the cloud? 1. It is easier to manage services from one location. 2. It saves time and offers convenience. And 3. It reduces the number of usernames and passwords to remember.
The cloud continues to grow, and Gartner predicts it will grow 18% in 2017 to $247 billion in market size. In this case, not only will the cloud help you become more agile, save money and be more productive, it will continue to become a lucrative market thanks to its projected growth and usage by both Providers and Participants (as stated in my previous post, 65% of consumers are likely to start using the cloud in the next 12 months).
So if you’re looking to transform experiences for participants, look to leverage cloud-based, automated workflow tools. You’ll find opportunities that will improve outcomes and change the way you do business.
Additional information on these trends and best practices can be found in Broadridge's Retirement Communications Resource Center