"Coffee with a NIPA Member" is a feature published in NIPA News and posted to NIPA's Website that spotlights a different member each month.
S Chandrasekar's, APA, company, Congruent Solutions, Inc., is one of the few organizations outside the U.S. employing professionals holding NIPA's Accredited Pension Administrator (APA) and Accredited Pension Representative (APR) designations. Read more on S Chandrasekar's experience in the retirement industry and with NIPA in this month's "Coffee with a NIPA Member."
Q: How did you get involved in the pension and benefits industry?
S Chandrasekar: Around four years ago, my company, Congruent Solutions Inc., made a strategic decision to build a global delivery center to provide cost effective pension administration services to plan providers and TPAs. This decision was based on a felt need among the plan provider and TPA community to cut costs and focus on client facing activities. I took up the responsibility to set-up this center for Congruent in India and build the domain knowledge. Since then, we have steadily grown.
Q: Please provide a little detail on your company: its name/how many employees you work with in the company?
S Chandrasekar: Congruent Solutions is a global services company with its offices in the U.S. ( New Jersey & California ), UK , Luxemburg and Singapore . Congruent provides pension administration services and technology services for the pension/retirement industry.
Congruent Solutions is one of the few companies worldwide which has a ISO 9001: 2000 certification for delivering pension administration services.
The company employs approximately 250 people worldwide. It is also among the few companies outside of the U.S. with NIPA certified employees.
Q: What trends/developments are you noticing in the industry?
S Chandrasekar: Based upon our interactions with a wide cross-section of players in the industry, some of the trends we observe are:
1. Felt need for more education to participants so they can make prudent investment decisions and also understand the importance of growing the retirement nest.
2. The need for technology as an enabler for increasing communication with participants in a cost-effective manner through use of eLearning and personalization of information and reports to participants.
3. Increasing use of Internet-based pension frameworks which would enable participants and plan sponsors to do more of their queries and transactions over the Internet.
4. Increasing popularity of annuity-based distributions rather than lump sum distributions.
5. Increased interest in leveraging the globalization of the outsourcing model. After an initial reluctance to adopt the model, better security practices and process maturity of partners have provided a comfort factor to the plan-provider community to embrace this model.
Q: What are some issues facing pension administrators in the future? How do you think NIPA can help?
S Chandrasekar: There is bound to be pressure on plan administrators to manage costs. A combination of factors including: poorly performing investment markets, hence the need to cut costs to ensure returns; market pressures due to impending requirements for disclosure of plan costs; and the high cost of administration, would all combine to force administrators to look at means to cut costs.
There is a large number of small and medium size TPAs who could cut costs through enhanced use of technology for document management, plan administration, plan communication, etc. It would be useful if NIPA established a "technology enabler" group which could educate such TPAs on available options.
Q: How and when did you get involved with NIPA?
S Chandrasekar: I have been involved with NIPA for the last three years during which period I have been completing the various exams in APA. When we evaluated the various certification options we decided that the NIPA courses would be most relevant for our purpose.
Q: How has NIPA helped you personally and helped your business grow and be more competitive?
S Chandrasekar: I have found the NIPA courses to be very detailed and at the same time relevant to the day to day administrative requirements. Going through the rigor of the APA has helped me to get in-depth domain knowledge of the various aspects of the pension industry. This in turn has enabled us as an organization to deliver high quality pension administration services to our TPA/Plan Provider clients.
Q: What value does NIPA provide to the retirement plan community?
S Chandrasekar: NIPA in addition to its role in certification has contributed significantly in continuing education which is an important need in this industry where administrators need to be constantly updated.
It has also played an important role in bringing together various players in the community through its conferences and these have been great forums for exchange of ideas and hearing industry leaders.
If you would like to be featured in an upcoming "Coffee with a NIPA Member," please contact Jamie Kunzelmann at jkunzelmann@nipa.org.
Source: http://nipa.org/Coffee.cfm |
