Success Stories

Morneau Sobeco Improves Project Success and Customer Satisfaction with Daptiv

Morneau Sobeco delivers outsourcing solutions to support the ongoing administration of health & welfare benefit and pension plans. With over four decades of experience, they currently count among their clients some of the largest organizations in the United States and Canada. While an established presence in the large market, their rapid growth is fuelled by an uncommon ability to cost-effectively deliver these industry-leading tools and services to mid-sized organizations, thereby providing large-market services and systems to employers with as few as 1000 employees.

Morneau Sobeco implements outsourcing partnerships with their clients. They specialize in the administration of an employer's benefit, pension or savings plans and deliver complete self-service, back-office and call center support functions. On average, Morneau Sobeco will have 10 implementations active at any given time that typically last 3-6 months or longer depending on the project scope.

Challenges

Prior to implementing Daptiv, Morneau Sobeco kept project schedules, issue tracking spreadsheets, and documents on file servers and circulated them as email attachments. This created several challenges:

  • Communication via email was at times inefficient. If a key person was excluded from the conversation, it was difficult to bring them into the loop later on.
  • File server based document management and approval was not accessible by external clients, creating the potential for confusion and errors due to out-of-date documents.
  • Project collaboration always involved parties external to their organization. The client's implementation team has a key role in any outsourcing project. To include them in a strong communication infrastructure would have required Morneau Sobeco to give them access to local network servers. Obviously, this was not an option from a security standpoint. A "neutral" collaboration solution that was universally available over the Web was the ideal solution.

Solution

Morneau Sobeco turned to Daptiv for help. A project requiring centralized collaboration with a client was selected for the pilot. One or two project managers then adopted the product for their projects. Adoption has grown among the organization's project managers and they have now implemented Daptiv for all Morneau Sobeco's key project team members as well as including customers from the client implementation teams.

Results

Now, with Daptiv, Morneau Sobeco has experienced improved project team and client communication, the confidence that all participants are using the correct document versions, and faster workflow as a result of the common repository and notification process. According to Rob Bartholomew, Principal at Morneau Sobeco, Daptiv's Document Management capabilities had the most dramatic immediate impact is the most used feature. "Our projects include the development and approval of a number of analysis documents, configuration documents, process documents and functional specifications. These all need to be managed and approved, and they evolve over time. Daptiv is an ideal document control tool and repository", said Bartholomew. "Daptiv has proven to be an excellent marketing tool as well. We typically mention Daptiv in our client presentations. Most are impressed and more importantly it underscores our commitment to project implementation and a quality service delivery."

Bartholomew sums up their Daptiv experience this way, "A great outsourcing relationship starts with a successful implementation. Daptiv provides us with the tools we need to work collaboratively with our clients, communicate changes effectively and control the project assets. Morneau Sobeco's track record for delivering benefit & pension administration projects on time and on budget is impressive, and Daptiv is an integral part of our success."

Morneau Sobeco is a leading North American provider of health & welfare and pension administration services.

With over 900 employees, Morneau Sobeco provides administration services to over hundreds of organizations, representing in excess of 700,000 members including some of the largest organizations in the United States and Canada.