In an article they wrote for the Journal of Pension Benefits, Sarah Simoneaux and Chris Stroud from Simoneaux and Stroud Consulting Services offer some valuable insights on how TPAs can benefit from strategic partnerships. In fact, the lessons are transferable to any business segment.
Simoneaux and Stroud write: "As the TPA profession has matured, companies have learned the benefits of partnership. Local TPA firms provide administration and compliance services to their plans and advisors while partnering with national recordkeeping providers. Many defined contribution TPAs partner with other TPA firms that offer defined benefit and cash balance plan design and administration. An emerging partnership area over the past few years has been larger open architecture TPA/record keepers partnering with TPAs that do not provide daily valuation recordkeeping in-house. Focusing on the specifics of what a firm does well, rather than trying to be all things to all clients, is what a good partnership arrangement can support. With an effective partnership arrangement, your firm can offer all services to a client without having to perform all services independently."
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