This new long-term contract is an extension of Profund’s existing relationship with Kingfisher, the home improvement retailer, which owns the brands B&Q and Screwfix and has been using Profund’s administration, pension payroll and fund accounting solutions for over 10 years.
Having a track record of innovation, the Kingfisher Pension Scheme will use Profund Private Cloud to transform its existing administration service delivery model, through combining the removal of in-house bespoke systems and manual process interventions, with the utilisation of Profund end to end ‘enterprise’ software. This includes its powerful document management and workflow tools, which will increase automation, streamline processes, reduce operational risk enabling the Kingfisher administration team to gain efficiencies and ultimately provide self-service functionality to DB members via Profund’s web portal.
Profund Private Cloud will give Kingfisher access to Profund’s pension administration software in a secure hosted environment, providing greater control, efficiency and flexibility in managing its DB pension scheme. The Kingfisher Pension Scheme will be accessible anytime from anywhere in the world, and will benefit from a full disaster recovery solution with tight recovery points.
Malcolm Johnson, Managing Director, Profund Solutions Limited, commented:
“This is an exciting project, which sees Kingfisher fully adopting our innovative Profund Private Cloud solution for managing their DB pension scheme. This will provide the trustees with operational service efficiencies and increased functionality whilst reducing risk, thus providing a firm foundation from which the trustees can execute their long-term de-risking goals with confidence.
“Schemes are increasingly aware of the numerous benefits that come with embracing technology. In 2015, I envisage the take-up rate of cloud-based solutions to propagate further as CIOs and IT Directors look for new ways to improve business efficiencies and trustees require more accessible, resilient and scalable pension management solutions following the increased pension flexibilities from April 2015 onwards.”
Dermot Courtier, Secretary to the Kingfisher Pension Trustees, added: “We are delighted to work with the Profund team on this project. Moving to a hosted cloud environment and their suite of pension systems will result in greater automation, security and efficiencies for our DB membership and reduce systems risk both on a business continuity and disaster recovery basis.”
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