Fidelity Pursues Midmarket HR BPO Business

Fidelity Human Resources Services, the HRO division of Fidelity Investments, is launching a new strategy to target midmarket HR business process outsourcing clients.

During the past year, Fidelity has been quiet in the HRO business as it has focused on redefining its strategy, said Arthur Mazor, senior vice president of offering management marketing for Fidelity HR Services, in an interview at the HRO World Conference & Expo, held April 16-17 at the New York Hilton.

But now the company is ready to press ahead in the HR business process outsourcing market and hopes to be among the top players in the small-market, midmarket and large-market HR BPO spaces, said Patrick Goepel, president of Fidelity HR Services, in the interview.

The company wants to tap the midmarket because it is a fast-growing space, Goepel said, estimating that it’s growing at 14 percent per year.

Fidelity believes it can compete in this market against the likes of Ceridian and Automated Data Processing, which have targeting this market for years, because of its strong brand name and network of investor centers, Goepel said.

“If you ask employees who they trust, I’m not sure that some of their names would come up,” he said.

With Fidelity’s offering, employees can go online or walk into an investor center if they have questions about their 401(k)s, Goepel said.

Down the road Fidelity might purchase an HRO provider to make further inroads into this market, although there are no immediate plans to do so, he said. The company expects to sign its first midmarket HR BPO client by year-end.