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Guest Article Solving Technology Challenges With IT Outsourcing for Retirement AdministratorsBy Bill Byerly, executive vice president & general manager, SunGard's wealth & retirement administration business. Retirement administrators' ability to adjust to emerging regulations, operate more efficiently, bring new products to market, communicate over multiple channels, and confidently scale their operations depends upon the flexibility and scalability of their IT platforms. Yet many providers continue to rely on proprietary or legacy applications and databases. These platforms are difficult and costly to maintain, upgrade and integrate. Most are not nimble enough to easily support new products, services or legislation, and they're difficult to scale cost effectively. Lack of consistent data formats makes it difficult to access client data from different systems, which means considerable manual rekeying of data. Nonexistent or cumbersome reporting mechanisms make it difficult to accurately determine participant costs. Creating automated workflows, making changes and performing integration can be difficult, complex and expensive because of multiple systems often running on separate architectures. Large capital investments are required to maintain and grow the infrastructure, which can have a detrimental impact on the bottom line. But retirement administrators need not address these challenges alone. IT outsourcing can provide them with the opportunity to take advantage of advanced, modern recordkeeping applications within a high-performance IT infrastructure while outsourcing the implementation and maintenance of these systems. At the same time, providers can leverage global data centers to host their software and IT systems in a secure, compliant, and accessible environment while controlling everyday recordkeeping operations. The benefits of IT outsourcing are many. These include the ability to: Improve efficiency by leveraging best practices -- Retirement administrators can instantly take advantage of a platform that leverages best practices developed across a wide range of similar companies. Take advantage of a standardized, modern technology platform that provides:
Achieve cost-effective scalability through the cloud -- Cloud-based platforms can scale up or down to accommodate various retirement industry market sizes and reduces capital investments. Recordkeepers pay for only what they need, when they need it. Mitigate compliance risk -- An IT service provider can rapidly change its technology and services to help clients remain compliant with evolving legislative requirements. Use the most up-to-date technology -- Because the IT service provider is responsible for upgrades, providers can rest assured that they're using the most modern infrastructure without having to implement and test the upgrades themselves. Deliver mission-critical recovery -- Mission-critical recovery processes help enhance compliant disaster recovery. For more information on outsourcing, download the white paper, Growing Revenue, Profitability, and Efficiency: Managed Services for Retirement Administrators. William (Bill) Byerly is SunGard's executive vice president and general manager for SunGard's Omni solutions and managed services operations for SunGard's wealth & retirement administration business. With more than 30 years of experience, Bill has built scalable, comprehensive, and highly productive service delivery teams and platforms, including ten years of experience in off-shore and near-shore operations involving off-shoring work to India and within the U.S. as well as direct oversight of the off-shore resources. Bill can be reached at Bill.Byerly@sungard.com. ### 401khelpcenter.com is not affiliated with the author of this article nor responsible for its content. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of 401khelpcenter.com. This article is for informational and educational purposes only and doesn't constitute legal, tax or investment advise. | ||||
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