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 Company: Benefit Express
Company Description: Founded in 2001, Benefit Express is one of the fastest growing benefits administration firms in the country. By using an internet-based administration tool, we service over 250 clients and 40 Fortune 500 clients to fully automate and simplify the human resource and benefit administration process. We employ 80 individuals; winning awards for our delivery of high quality administration services.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Product Development Organization/Department
Nomination Title: A Stellar Product Development Team leads to a Stellar Product and Increased Sales
- Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved since January 1 2007 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Started in 2000, Benefit Express focused on online benefits administration. In
the very competitive field of human resources outsourcing, reduced cost and
increased productivity are the keys to winning business. Benefit Express
recognized the demand for automated online processing of life events and
invested in a huge development effort in 2007 to bring this capability to the
market.
The challenge with automating life events for clients is that no two clients
administer these in the same way! In order to maintain the core administrative
philosophy that the company strives so hard to continue, we knew that we would
have to build a tool that would allow administrators the ability to set-up the
administrative handling of life events, and get programmers out-of-the-loop.
The challenges include being able to administer life events for clients that:
1.Require that paper proof of the event be submitted to Human Resources before
the event is "released" and the employee is allowed to make the change in their
benefits, and
2.Do not require paper proof of the event and wish to allow employees the
ability to enroll in their new benefits (or make changes to existing benefits).
3.Administer their benefits using a mix of the above two administrative
practices.
In order to accommodate this, Benefit Express developers recognized that
parameters would need to be developed that categorized all possible
permutations of the types of changes that an employee COULD make and then
thoroughly test that those parameters accomplished the stated goals.
Additionally, ALL content needed to be configurable on a client-by-client basis.
Key to the success is Benefit Express’ HR Taskpad that serves as the ‘Mission
Control” for the entire enrollment process. The HR Taskpad automatically
oversees the entire process and triggers each step in the appropriate order.
The steps can be tailored to meet the needs of the Human Resources department,
but can include the verification or alert that:
• EOI form is needed
• EOI form is completed
• Insurance vendor has approved or declined coverage
• To the employee record.
• Payroll deduction is correct
In late 2007, Benefit Express was able to deliver to market the Life Changes
module of My Benefit Express! We accomplished every stated goal in the
development and as a result, clients now have the ability to open up life event
changes in a self service environment (a task that was previously mainly
manually accomplished). This has saved countless hours of time on both the
part of our clients, as well as our own internal outsourcing staff.
The final product, My Benefit ExpressTM, and the outsourced HR administration
services provided by Benefit Express have been purchased by 10 new clients in
2007 alone. The Product Development team’s innovation has assisted in growing
our business by over 30% in one year – a year that saw many changes in the
economy and in the HR outsourcing industry – a year that saw many of our
competitors exit the HR administration business or merge with others in order
to survive.
- List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/510600
http://www.insurancenewsnet.com/article.asp?a=featured_pr&id=67388
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/prnewswire/access/1215197151.html?
dids=1215197151:1215197151&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+13%
2C+2007&author=&pub=PR+Newswire&edition=&startpage=n%2Fa&desc=2006+-
+Another+Incredible+Year+for+Benefit+Express!
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/prnewswire/access/1222889441.html?
dids=1222889441:1222889441&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+26%
2C+2007&author=&pub=PR+Newswire&edition=&startpage=n%2Fa&desc=My+EOI(TM)+-
+New+Evidence+of+Insurability+Secure+Instant+Data+Exchange%
3B+Streamlined+and+Automated+Innovation+Improves+Quality+and+Saves+Time
- Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:
The leader of the Product Development team is Love Ann Dougherty. She serves as
our Manager of Administration services, specializing in administration and
systems for client companies. She has over 15 years of experience as an
Administration Specialist, a team leader, and the design/maintenance of
administration and benefits information systems. Her experience includes all
aspects of payroll, data/benefits administration (including COBRA/HIPAA) and
database design. Above and beyond this, she is a hard working associate with
dedication and commitment to her clients.
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