At-A-Glance Guide from Empyrean Benefit Solutions November ...€¦ · In this At-A-Glance Guide, you’ll learn the top 10 tips for crafting an effective RFP and . managing a productive

At-A-Glance Guide from Empyrean Benefit Solutions November 2018

Refine Your RFP: 10 Tips to Getting the Most Out of Your Evaluation Process

2 At-A-Glance Guide from Empyrean Benefit Solutions

INTRODUCTION

The request for proposal (RFP) is a key element when evaluating benefit administration providers. RFP responses can provide a look under the hood of a potential partner’s solution and services, but in order to glean the most from an RFP and help you get the most value from the RFP process, it’s crucial that your questionnaire goes beyond a simple “check-the-box” exercise.

An RFP does not have to be long or complicated. A concise yet effective RFP will bring clarity to your vendor vetting process and help guide you to find the best partner for your needs. In return, you’ll gain greater control over your decision and be better equipped to understand how different providers will address your specific needs.

In this At-A-Glance Guide, you’ll learn the top 10 tips for crafting an effective RFP and managing a productive evaluation process. The right structure and proactive planning will ensure your time and effort deliver the best return on your investment for years to come.

Refine Your RFP: 10 Tips to Getting the Most Out of Your Evaluation Process


Before evaluating any type of solution, you must understand what it is you’re looking to solve. The first step of a successful RFP is a thoughtful internal evaluation of your current and future needs. Before drafting your RFP, gather stakeholders to openly discuss the issues and the goals you want to address with a new benefits administration solution. You will also want to ensure you have a complete list of all the vendors, number of files, and file transmission schedules that a potential partner will need to manage, so you can clearly state these details in the introduction to your RFP.

Think through the following:

• What are the toughest challenges or pain points you experience with your current benefits administration system or process?

• Where is your current system failing to deliver as expected?

• Where is your current system performing as expected, and what would you like to see improved?

• What unexpected problems or tasks derail your work day?

• What functions and capabilities would make your job easier?

• What aspects of your benefits administration would you most like to automate?

• Beyond core administration, what additional services are you open to outsourcing?

• What would your ideal day look like if your benefits administration provider just worked as promised?

Get a clear sense from your entire team of your current needs and desired future-state, and have defined expectations of how your chosen provider will help make this change a reality. Understanding and clearly articulating your needs from the start will allow you to perform a more objective and concrete evaluation of providers as you proceed through the RFP process.

1 | Know Your Needs

REFINE YOUR RFP: 10 TIPS TO GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR EVALUATION PROCESS


A benefits administration provider is a choice that will impact the success of your benefits strategy and employees and participants for years to come. Rushing the decision or boxing yourself into a shortened timeline with an emergency implementation is not advised. Establish your target dates well in advance for the RFP process, finalist meetings and selection, kick-off and implementation, Go-Live, and Annual Enrollment (AE) on your new system. Schedule target dates around your team’s requirements and realistic availability.

Every employer is different, and your timeline may vary depending on internal and external factors, your specific needs, and your schedule. At a minimum, allow four to five weeks between the release of your RFP and the submission deadline. A thorough RFP should not be a send-it-and-forget-it process; you should allow for some measured dialogue with your recipients. Providing enough time for you to receive and respond to vendors’ follow-up and clarification questions will ensure you gain the most clear and relevant information from RFP respondents. In short, you will get better quality responses.

2 | Plan Accordingly



If you are looking to gather preliminary information from a large number of providers, or are not yet sure which factors will be the most important to your business, consider releasing a Request for Information (RFI) before moving on to an RFP.

An RFI will give you top-level perspective into vendor possibilities, help clarify your most important evaluation factors, and narrow down your list of RFP recipients for more a manageable and productive process at the RFP stage.

3 | Consider Starting with an RFI



When using a sourcing advisor or consultant, be sure to vet their services as you would any other vendor or partner. Your advisor should be an expert advocate for your success, and ensure that your RFP reflects the latest issues and practices impacting employee benefits, employer compliance, enterprise technology, and more.

Benefits administration technology providers are not one-size-fits-all, nor do you want a critically important enterprise solution that is generalized and not specific to you. A trusted advisor will bring rich industry perspective to individualize the RFP to your needs, and will check that your RFP addresses up-to-date and relevant topics that enable you to select your best-fitting, long-term partner.

To get a sense of how an advisor might approach this, consider asking for samples from RFPs they have recently worked on for clients that closely align with your complexity, similar needs, and industry, and discuss how these questions might differ from a client with a different background or needs. By exploring these gaps, you will be better equipped to understand how a particular advisor might tailor questions to fit you.

4 | Evaluate Your Advisors



Whether you are working with a sourcing advisor or handling the RFP process in-house, the purpose of your RFP is the same: You want to determine the best benefits administration partner for your business. Unfortunately, many RFPs consist of boilerplate yes-or-no questions and generic language that fail to address clients’ specific requirements, concerns, and goals.

Without a proper-fitting RFP, the resulting questionnaire will be too broad to gather meaningful responses – leaving your team to find subtleties among similar answers from multiple providers. This increases the risk of selecting an ill-fitting vendor.

During the preliminary internal meeting with your stakeholders (see Tip 1), be sure to clearly define the requirements, processes, and partners that are unique to your benefits strategy and program. Work with your sourcing advisor and/or team to develop open-ended questions that address your specific needs and invite truly informative responses from respondents.

5 | Avoid Boilerplate Questions



While it may seem more effective to ask as many questions as possible within your RFP, the reality of sifting through hundreds of responses from multiple providers can be daunting and difficult – or downright impossible. A smartly designed RFP will feature a concise yet comprehensive set of questions that, once completed, will be clear and accessible for you and your team to review.

Your RFP may include questions from the different stakeholders or departments that will interact with your solution (for example, your HR, finance, and IT teams may all have a part in designing your RFP). After gathering input from across your organization, be sure to review your RFP in its entirety and remove duplicate questions or clarify language where necessary.

Avoid cluttering your questionnaire: Focus on the major capabilities and issues you need addressed to move forward at this point in the evaluation process.

The RFP is part of the process, not the full disclosure for answers. The RFP is a tool to help you understand respondents’ different offerings and facilitate productive and solution-driven conversations with the providers that match your requirements. Your ultimate RFP success, however, will be determined by the quality of the questions asked and your ability to review and compare responses once you receive them.

6 | Fewer Questions Bring More Clarity



To not cloud the quality of the responses you receive, keep questions relevant to the current stage of your vendor evaluation process. A successful RFP will help both you and your potential providers determine how solutions can best be applied to meet your needs. At this stage, requesting specific team assignments, team member details, or resource allocation metrics can lead to inaccurate estimates or result in information that is subject to change as discussions proceed.

No two benefits administration providers are alike: expect approaches to technology, service solutions, and process efficiency to vary. Instead of comparing estimated team sizes across providers, focus instead on asking questions that illustrate how a provider’s team will work alongside your own. You’re looking for process and methodology now; the “who” of your solution will come later.

Ask how daily tasks and larger projects will be managed across your account team. Aim to understand how your partner’s team will function and transition through typical stages such as implementation, go-live, and into daily service – as well as how your team will work together to tackle larger projects like Annual Enrollment, acquisitions, and divestitures. This will give concrete guidance on the stability of a vendor’s processes at the team and technology level, and help keep responses relevant to the information you need now.

7 | Keep Questions Relevant to the RFP Stage



While RFPs have traditionally required hard-copy responses submitted via mail, modern technology has changed many employers’ perspectives on this requirement. The right RFP technology makes an enormous difference in efficiency and effectiveness when crafting, publishing, and reviewing an RFP.

With RFP technology from a trusted vendor, such as RFP365, you can publish RFPs and receive, sort, filter, search, and compare responses with ease. Digitizing your RFP streamlines the review process for your team, and eliminates paper responses for a more eco-friendly evaluation process. As you plan your RFP, reconsider the value hard copy responses will bring your team (if any), especially if you are planning to make use of RFP technology.

8 | Leverage RFP Technology



Keep an open mind regarding current processes as you explore your options. Look not to just improve your technology, but also to update your processes and best leverage your vendor’s expertise and advice.

A best-in-class benefits administration technology vendor will have experience optimizing their solution to manage a wide variety of strategic needs, program goals, and complexities. Also consider taking advantage of any best practices or preferred partnerships offered, which may increase your efficiency, lower your costs, and enhance your benefits experience.

Staying receptive to opportunities for improvement can increases your solution stability and heighten your team’s flexibility, which will pay off significantly as your strategy evolves over time.

9 | Remain Open to Best Practices



The total cost of your solution is important, but as the saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” Enterprise technology is no exception to this rule. While bottom-line estimates may vary among your potential providers, it is key to consider the value and quality of services you’ll receive from your chosen partner equally with the cost of the solution.

For example, consider the difference in quality between a benefits administration provider that assigns each client a dedicated service team, versus a vendor that funnels all client inquiries through a general service center.

A dedicated client service team will learn your unique benefits offering, strategy, and goals – and will feature direct reporting relationships to truly serve as an extension of your own internal team. In return, you will experience faster change requests, higher quality issue resolution, and a more productive ongoing dialogue with your benefits administration partner. Your needs will be understood from Day One of service, and will be addressed as they change and evolve throughout your partnership.

Conversely, a one-size-fits-all approach to client service leads to longer turn-around times, repeat mistakes, and constant service frustrations. A client and provider cannot remain aligned without a cohesively dedicated team, regular communication, and a singular (and reliably accessible) point of contact.

Though a vendor may appear less costly upfront, the risk of misunderstandings, long waiting periods, repeating questions and needlessly following-up on issues, lack of proven resolution processes, and unexpected errors and service hurdles can cost you more in hours of rework, data discrepancies, and poor service issues over time.

10 | Compare Quality, Not Just Cost



There are many factors to consider when evaluating the value of a benefits administration provider, including back-end stability, data integrity and security, technology flexibility and scalability, and service philosophy.* If cost is a highly significant factor in your decision, ask RFP respondents about potential partnerships and best practice processes that can streamline your solution and deliver cost-effective results.

*For more tips on evaluating potential benefits administration providers, check out Empyrean’s At-A-Glance Guide to the 12 Traits of a Successful Benefits Administration Technology Partner.

10 | Compare Quality, Not Just Cost, Cont’d.


https://www.goempyrean.com/benefits-administration/12-traits/


The RFP is an extremely valuable introductory guide to understanding what a benefits administration provider offers, how their solution is operated, and how their team will work with you. As you proceed through the decision-making process, aim to avoid the typical confusion and clutter that can hinder your effectiveness – especially during the RFP stage – and mindfully focus on each step of the process.

Approach the vendor selection process as a way to not only explore potential vendor platforms, but also as an opportunity to learn more about how you can improve your benefits program, participant experience, and overall strategy.

With these ten RFP tips top-of-mind, you will be well positioned to direct informative and productive partner evaluations, help minimize your risks, and empower your team to make the best partner choice for your business.

Conclusion



Empyrean Benefit Solutions manages employee health and welfare benefits programs, combining the industry’s most modern, client-adaptive, and configurable benefits technology platform with expert, responsive service to deliver Hi-Touch Benefits Administration. Empyrean provides market-leading enrollment, eligibility management, ACA reporting, and other plan administration services that empower employers, insurance brokers, and healthcare exchanges to meet ever-evolving benefit challenges. Founded in 2006, Empyrean’s integrated platform serves over three million annual participants across a wide spectrum of sizes, industries, and complexities.

Visit www.GoEmpyrean.com for more information.

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At-A-Glance Guide from Empyrean Benefit Solutions November ...€¦ · In this At-A-Glance Guide, you’ll learn the top 10 tips for crafting an effective RFP and . managing a productive