BUSINESS PROBLEM
Our client, a Defined Contribution recordkeeper, services both the corporate and tax-exempt markets, inclusive of small, mid, and large plans.
Deeply rooted in the smaller plan market, our client was looking to move upmarket with scale and confidence.
Enterprise Iron was engaged to conduct an independent and unbiased mid-to-large plan market Minimum Viable Offering (MVO) Assessment. Specific to this engagement, the mid-to-large market is defined as $50M+.
The MVO covered the retirement ecosystem inclusive of recordkeeping, fiduciary and compliance, sponsor, participant, and advisory services, investment services, as well as service delivery model, distribution strategy, and competitive evaluation (top providers in the space).
To position our client for success, our Assessment was conducted through the lens of three (3) distinct areas:
- Business Focus – Defining Top 10 Priorities
- Recordkeeping and Service Delivery Focus – Defining Top 10 Priorities
- Organizational Change Management (OCM) Focus – Defining the Top recommendation to execute the Prioritization Plan
OUR SOLUTION
In collaboration with the CEO and Head of Strategic Execution of Retirement Services, Enterprise Iron executed the MVO Assessment taking a top-down, bottom-up approach.
We deployed a small team of highly-seasoned product and operations SMEs, and then conducted interviews with members of the Senior Leadership Team focusing on overarching themes.
We held multiple sessions with the SMEs to gain insights into our clients’ current offering, inventorying the features, functionality, and pain points across the retirement ecosystem.
Our strategic approach and deliverables included:
- Inventorying the current product offering
- Benchmarking the offering against industry best practices to identify product and service gaps, as well as differentiators
- Isolating market segmentation buying criteria to evaluate service delivery model, distribution, and pricing strategy
- Identifying what supporting technology would be required to deliver the offering
- Preparing a competitive analysis of top competitors
- Conducting an OCM Assessment to assess if organizational changes are required to support the business model
- Delivering findings and presenting recommendations
RESULTS & CLIENT BENEFITS
Our report focused on closing gaps to position our client to successfully move upmarket with both scale and confidence.
We assessed all gaps through three (3) vantage points with the goal of providing our client with specific actions around:
- Prioritization and Optionality – rank highest to lowest priority (highly desirable vs. less desirable to compete successfully)
- Points of Leverage – would a capital investment benefit small, mid, large, or all markets?
- Cost Sizing Estimates or Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) – provides a high-level view of cost
The prioritization recommendations were plotted based on two key criteria: Impact on the Organization and Complexity/Time.
We summarized observations and takeaways from the perspectives of Recordkeeping and Operations, Plan Sponsors and Advisors, Participants, and Market Differentiators.
Client Testimonial
“This initiative was deemed a high priority for our firm and of equal importance, we were looking to have an independent and unbiased third-party conduct this Assessment. We have been working with Enterprise Iron for several years and as a trusted business partner, we value their expertise in the retirement space, were extremely pleased with the work performed for us on this engagement, and have incorporated many of the recommendations into our multi-year product roadmap.”