Customers
OVERVIEW
Staples, Inc. invented the office superstore concept in 1986 and today is the world's largest office products company. With 69,000 talented associates, the company is committed to making it easy to buy a wide range of office products, including supplies, technology, furniture, and business services. With 2005 sales of $16.1 billion, Staples serves consumers and businesses ranging from home-based businesses to Fortune 500 companies in 21 countries throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia. Headquartered outside of Boston, Staples operates approximately 1,780 office superstores and also serves its customers through mail order catalog, e-commerce and contract businesses.
To keep it easy for their customers when they are in so many different locations and countries Staples must leverage technology for optimal delivery and customer satisfaction. This is true in every facet of their business down to the sourcing and managing of their benefit suppliers.
THE CHALLENGE
At most companies, managing employee benefit programs means getting deeply involved in administrative oversight such as supplier and document management that takes time away from high value, customer facing work. Staples faced this challenge and; therefore, needed to take steps to reallocate benefits staff time from work which had little direct value to their customer to tasks which made their benefits more meaningful to their associates.
The top issues Staples wanted to address were:
- Reduce supplier sourcing and oversight time as well as document management time - Because Staples' benefits staff spends a significant amount of time in these management roles, they are limited with the time they can spend on helping their associates appreciate and maximize their benefits. Tasks involving supplier sourcing, contract and performance guarantee monitoring and writing summary plan descriptions (SPDs) all require a disproportionate amount of staff time. Given that most of this was recurring and routine, Staples wanted to minimize the time spent on them and maximize time on more strategic initiatives such as designing programs which matter to associates and educating them on how to maximize their value.
- Improve data management - Claims, census, benefits design and various analysis were stored in several locations (including with the supplier and consultant) in various formats. This meant collecting the needed data for an RFP, if at all complex or multi-faceted, could be very cumbersome. Staples wanted to improve this situation by storing the needed data in a single location, in a single format which was clearly owned and controlled by Staples.
- Improve internal control during supplier bidding - Staples wanted to increase internal controls around the whole sourcing process. They wanted to create a transparent bidding system so all suppliers could be evaluated fairly and objectively based on predefined criteria.
- All suppliers were provided the same data and information
- All suppliers complied with Staples bidding process
- Staples had auditable trail of bids, terms and conditions
and any follow-up questions. - Demonstrate control and value of programs to senior leadership - Staples needed to be able to periodically generate reports for management which showed a regular review of their plans, supplier contracts, and compliance.
Staples turned to HighRoads for help in solving these challenges.
THE SOLUTION: HIGHROADS
HighRoads helped Staples automate labor-intensive tasks and streamline day-to-day operations. With HighRoads, Staples was able to gain control over the entire benefits management process with:
- Reduced cost of benefits plans - Staples has realized a year over year savings in costs using HighRoads . Through the use of the sourcing/bidding tool, Staples has been able to realize and document savings from competing bidders against prior year rate.
- Roles-based access - Access and use of content was simplified because HighRoads enabled Staples to provide roles-based access to users. Staples' benefits staff as well as their consultants were able to review and update information as dictated by their level of access. Roles-based access allowed Staples and its consultant to collaborate without compromising the security of employee data.
- Supplier management analysis - HighRoads helped Staples identify critical supplier services, and then weigh them based on priority, for analysis. A single view of the data was provided though a scorecard which made selection criteria such as supplier fees and services easy to compare. Using the drill down capability to obtain more detailed data, Staples was able to easily set up and monitor a supplier's adherence to contract and performance guarantee terms.
- Information management - HighRoads allowed Staples to store all benefits-related content in a central location where it could be used and updated during the entire benefits lifecycle. Documents could be accessed instantly by all authorized users and past versions could be utilized as a baseline to quickly create new versions without having to start from a blank slate. To ensure that benefits plans continued to meet the needs of their associates, all plan data is available for analysis. This data could be used to measure plan performance as well as employee satisfaction. Additionally, summary or detailed reports could be created to provide stakeholders with information benefits plan including costs savings and supplier performance.
THE RESULTS
HighRoads helped Staples streamline the benefits management process and redirect benefit staff productivity into more value added tasks which improve their associate satisfaction with their benefit programs. Staples gained better control over its benefits data, automated many labor-intensive tasks, and improved audit controls. Some of the results generated included:
- Reduced cost of benefits plans - Staples has realized a year over year savings in costs using HighRoads . Through the use of the sourcing/bidding tool, Staples has been able to realize and document savings from competing bidders against prior year rate.
- Reduced time required for RFPs and/or renewals - Using templates and existing documents as a baseline, Staples is able to significantly reduce the time for an RFP event. In the past five years, Staples has successfully used HighRoads to conduct RFPs and/or renewals for medical, dental, pharmacy, stop loss and other employee benefit plans.
- Meet legal and audit controls - HighRoads allows Staples to meet legal and audit control requirements with transparency during the bidding process as well as an automatically created audit trail on actions performed by users within the application. Additionally, all terms and conditions are clearly laid out.