Sub-question 1: To what extent are Australian superannuation funds innovative?
Technological 27 Interactive online tools for members Industry and Public
Offer
Incremental
24 Interviewees from Fund 17 (a public offer fund) reported that their fund had an IPhone application, and the
mobile website application enabled its members to monitor their super via mobile devices. This application
allowed the membership to access daily unit and pension prices, and their super balances and was noted that
this was a useful application particularly where members were travelling. The CEO commented, “this is an
exciting development – giving our members the opportunity to carry their super around with them”. 25 The Managing Director, Mr Andrew Boal from Towers Watson in Australia noted that no longer will funds
need to rely on members reading the information in their member statements, visiting their website or ringing
their call centre.
26 Fund 17’s CEO also noted that the fund introduced a website retirement calculator – the first in Australia
developed to meet a shift in member approach to retirement. The CEO of this fund noted, “this is the first
interactive online calculator of its kind in Australia”. The calculator provided answers to four different
scenarios that factor a combination of employment income, salary sacrifice, superannuation guarantees
contributions, income tax, tax on super and their impact on annual take home pay and increases/decrease to
super balances.
27 Technology remains a key differentiator for all players within this industry, with the landscape changing
rapidly. The industry faces an opportunity to get their foundations correct and to create a new era of
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Types of Innovation Basic Characteristics Fund Type
Radical or Incremental Innovation Financial Planning Members and their families can
access Affordable financial planning
on most financial matters including;
pre‐retirement planning; transition
to retirement; taxation strategies;
wealth creation; establishing
appropriate insurance cover; estate
planning.
Industry, Government,
Public Offer and
Corporate
Incremental
Health insurance products Underwritten by a third party
insurer. Superannuation funds offer
their members discounted rates on
health insurance cover. This allows
fund members to access health cover
with no waiting periods for some
types of health benefits and extras.
Industry, Government,
Public Offer and
Corporate
Incremental
Solar Power Project in Spain
International investment in an off‐
shore solar power project.
Government offered guaranteed
tariffs to investors.
Industry Radical
Pension products – guaranteed protection against negative returns
A guaranteed income for an
individual that will provide a steady
income in retirement and a
protection against negative returns
in any asset class of the plan.
Industry Radical
‘help a mate’ program social innovation
A valuable programme introduced
into the building and construction
industry to improve the health and
wellbeing of the funds membership,
which aims to decrease the suicide
rate. The benefit to the fund is to
save lives, have more members and
reduce insurance claims.
Industry Radical
Table 12 highlights that most innovation occurs within industry funds. For the purposes of discussion of this research, types of innovations are categorised as: investment innovations, product innovation, marketing innovations and collaborative innovations. During this
section, there will be a more detailed examination on each of the different types of innovation within this industry.
Investment Innovation
The different types of investment innovations reported by participants which focussed primarily on green and sustainable investment options included:
a. Significant investment into wind farms (Fund 19). b. Carbon friendly investment options (Fund 19). c. Clean tech investments (Fund 14).
d. Renewable energy investments. e. Solar power (Fund 19).
In relation to the introduction of green investment options, this has been categorised as radical innovation within the context of ASI. As an investment choice, interviewees from two different ASFs reported that this member choice option actually came at a significant financial cost to their members. This was mainly due to this product being in the embryonic stage of the developmental cycle, which involves considerably higher costs. With this investment option the Return on Investment (ROI) is lower than on other investment choices offered by the fund. When exploring why the board would introduce a costly option for members, such as a sustainable investment options (albeit innovative), it was reported by interviewees that there was a market demand for sustainable options. Ironically, it was highlighted that the take up of these new options rate was marginal.
With the introduction of different asset classes, such as green or sustainable investments options, direct investment into property, or infrastructure asset classes by superannuation funds - have all enabled different product portfolios to be developed and offered to its membership.
Fund 19’s CEO considered that: “In relation to investment choices, I felt pressured into putting funds under management into property and not innovation as a reaction to the
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market.” However CEO of Fund 16 recognised that: “Large public offer funds have to be innovative otherwise members can join other funds.”
This research so far considers that the above examples demonstrate that innovation is
occurring within the ASI. New product development will be discussed further in this chapter.
Types of innovations provided by the interviewees were also focused around marketing innovations within the ASI. Two excellent examples included branding and life stage marketing segmentation.
Product Innovation
“Our fund has been product focused because of the interpretation of members’ choice…”
(Manager, Fund 2).
New products introduced into the market included:
Pension products – aged based default products (Fund 17).
Protected pension (Fund 2).
Micro finance (financial services, like banks offering small loans to locals in developing countries to support their business ideas) (Fund 14).
To determine the occurrence of product innovation within an ASF, a series of questions on the topic of NPD were asked of each interviewee to try and gauge a sense of the overall NPD focus within the ASF (refer to Appendix 5).
Marketing innovations
“Innovation is valued … and encouraged during the induction process for all staff members of this fund” (CEO, Fund 18)
As a general rule, when looking at the needs of working class people you don’t need innovative solutions to investment choices, all you need are “set and forget” simple solutions… yet in a number of the industry funds they are starting to develop complex products as they are looking at competing with retail funds… and industry funds have the belief that more complex products will help them compete.
(Marketing Manager of Fund 2)
a) Branding
Sponsorship of a high profile sporting team
The CIO of one large industry fund reported that this ASF was the first ASF to sponsor a high profile sporting team within the ASI. The CIO noted this was an isolated occurrence of a branding innovation within the ASI28. The CIO also noted how the APRA regulations of the
‘sole purpose’ test and the corporate governance framework had not had a negative impact on
28 Subsequently, other ASFs brand through various mediums including: radio and TV advertising campaigns. A
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their fund’s strategic decision to be innovative within the marketing arena. The CIO confirmed that it was a straightforward process to gain APRA approval to sponsor a high profile sporting team in relation to the ‘sole purpose’ test outlined in this thesis Introduction. It was reported by other participants representing ASFs29 that in light of the “sole purpose’
test imposed by regulation on their fund that it is extremely difficult to innovate for
marketing and gain approval by APRA. It is noted that there is a differing of opinion among the interviewees on this point.
The CEO was reported in The Australian newspaper as saying there is a strong nexus
between sports marketing and sponsorship and what his company does as a superannuation fund. For instance the CEO said: “When the Storm are playing, their games are beamed into pubs and clubs where our members are actually working. Given the youth demographics of our members, the average age is 29, our members are probably out enjoying themselves …and watching the teams …we’re sponsoring. Sponsoring sporting teams makes perfect sense and gives us greater bang for our dollars” (Fund19).
b) Targeted marketing through a Life stage model
Two industry funds (Funds 2 and 19), representing ten per cent of the sample size, provided examples of any marketing innovations occurring within their fund that could be categorised as radical innovations by Chesborough (2003).
Fund 2 is highly innovative demonstrated by developing and implementation of a targeted marketing strategy for each market segment through a life stage segmentation model which targeted to that life stage demographic instead of an overall marketing strategy for all its fund members (n = > 700, 000 members). Fund 2 appeared to be the only fund that allocated significant resources to delivering an innovative approach to marketing to its membership by this type of marketing segmentation. The advantages of this life stage targeted marketing
29 Funds 5, 14 and 15.
model approach includes higher retention rate of members, less operational costs for direct mail outs30 to all members and new product offerings.
Fund 2 had transitioned from one generic annual report to its entire membership, which is standard practice within the ASI, to providing three different annual reports tailored to
different market segments of its membership. In summary, Fund 2 was innovative by directly marketing to its members by lifecycle stages model, which the fund developed through detailed research of its membership. In addition, this fund had adopted marketing plans to address the different age demographics within their fund. Interviewees suggested that it addressed members needs better by their direct targeting of its members. 31
Fund 232 has had a membership growth of 6.5 per cent, faster than the industry median over
the past decade. Fund 2 has developed marketing initiatives focusing on protecting and increasing the value of existing members, maximum acquisition within core segments and selective acquisition of non-core members within this industry. One of Fund 2’s marketing initiatives was innovative by the fund’s approach to direct marketing to its membership by life stages segments developed through the fund’s qualitative and quantities research to build the life-stage segmentation model. The main purpose of the segmentation model is to
provide members information that is required by law to be communicated to the membership. Various targeted communications for the membership were planned for the next five year period.
For each life stage, marketing issues that need to be addressed by each individual ASF are as follows:
i. What products are required to meet member’s needs? ii. What services are required to meet members’ needs?
30 Direct mail out costs were over $ AUD1M
31 This is very similar approach to that adopted by Capital One in the USA.
32 Fund 2 is ranked within the top 15 per cent of all superannuation funds (Super Ratings) and has
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iii. How can we optimise our channels to meet member’s needs? iv. How can we best communicate with our members?
Rather than expensive direct mail outs to all members (n = > 300,000 active members plus n = > 200,000 inactive members) bi-yearly, Fund 2 strategically allocated significant resources to develop a sophisticated marketing segmentation model for its membership by direct targeting of different segments. The segments developed by Fund 2, are based on two
variables: Life Stage of the member and Employment type. Life Stage had been identified as the most significant driver of member/employee behaviour, with employment type being a secondary driver of behaviour. Segment attractiveness is judged according to the following criteria:
i. Total segment size.
ii. The fund’s current share of the segment. iii. Strategic fit with organisational capability.
iv. The fund’s ability to achieve differential advantage.
The fund adopted seven life stage segments33 and had adopted marketing plans to address the
different life stage demographics within its membership. The second stage involved using the life stage model from the research findings and applying it to the fund’s member database in order to generate predictions or estimates of the outcome. Stage three was to determine the size of each segment by assigning current members to groups based on characteristics, needs and segment profiles.
The Marketing Manager and Marketing Director reported that this initiative addressed members needs better through the direct marketing to its members.34 In summary, this fund
had developed and implemented a targeted strategy for each life stage market segment in its membership, instead of one generic marketing strategy for all members. Through this
33 Due to confidentiality, the seven categories will not be named.
initiative the fund had gained valuable data in relation to its overall membership. Three main segments made up eighty-six (86 per cent) of the fund’s member population.
Classification One had 24 per cent (24%, n = > 120,000, Total FUM$ $500,000,000) of the fund’s membership and members in this classification have been there on average for three to four years. Classification Two had 46 per cent (46%, n = >230,000, Total FUM$
$4,750,050,900) of the funds membership. Classification Three had eight per cent (8%, n > 40,000) of the fund’s membership. Classification Four had 16 per cent (16%, n = > 80,000, total FUM$ $3, 750, 156,100) of the fund’s membership and members in this classification have been there the longest with an average of 12 years. Classification Seven had six per cent of the fund’s membership and members in this classification have been there on average for four years to five years (Total FUM$ $905Million). Classification Five and Six had only one per cent each of the total fund’s membership (FUM $ 130,000,400 and $ 182,400,860). The fund was aware that apart from classification six, the average account balance of active members is marginally higher than the account balance of inactive members for all the remaining life-stage segments. Fund 2’s confidential strategic plan35 reported that there
would be a number of significant changes with emphasis on the development and
implementation of rigorous new product and service improvement programs. The life stage segmentation model recognised that there were certain segments that their offerings were more suited to, and members within each of the target segments have different product and service needs as well as different channel and communication preferences, see Diagram 14 below. Surprisingly, given the amount of $FUM within the ASI it was surprising that the data suggested that Fund 2 was the only superannuation fund where there was an allocation of significant resources to delivering an innovative approach to marketing to its members within the superannuation industry.
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Interviewees from 19 of the funds represented in this research acknowledged that they were not as commercially orientated with their marketing approach to its membership as they should be.
In summary, the life-stage segmentation model has given Fund 2 a competitive advantage strategically over all other ASFs within the ASI. This model was built by using both qualitative and quantitative research findings to group highly correlated member responses and preferences. These then define a set of unique, mutually exclusive member needs that occur within this Fund’s industry. The Marketing Manager from Fund 2 noted:
…This makes a huge difference in how you communicate with each of those markets …Now we target different messages and allocate resources more efficiently to align with members’ needs…This fund is innovative in segmentation of work and development of portfolio analysis.