Benefitfocus Inc 's

While we do not believe any single competitor offers similarly expansive software solutions, we face competition from various sources, many of which have greater resources than us. Competition in our employer segment includes:

ERP software companies, including Oracle (PeopleSoft), Infor (Lawson) and Workday each offering a cloud-based benefits administration software solution;

HR outsourcing companies, such as Towers Watson;

payroll service providers, such as ADP who expanded their core payroll services to include some form of cloud-based benefits administration services; and

various niche software vendors.

Competitors in our carrier segment include:

insurance carriers that have invested in internally developed benefit management solutions;

member services companies, including those providing web-based subscriber enrollment and claims adjudication services, such as Trizetto (acquired by Cognizant) and DST Health Solutions; and

various niche software vendors.

 

We believe that competition for benefits software and services is based primarily on the following factors:

capability for customization through configuration, integration, security, scalability, and reliability of applications;

competitive and understandable pricing;

breadth and depth of application functionality;

size of customer base and level of user adoption;

extensive data exchange network;

cloud-based delivery model;

dynamic communication capabilities with contextual media, animation, and acknowledgement tools;

ability to integrate with legacy enterprise infrastructures and third-party applications;

domain expertise in benefits and healthcare consumerism;

extensive base of rules and event-driven benefit eligibility and enrollment;

accessible on any browser or mobile device;

modern and adaptive technology platform;

access to third-party apps;

clearly defined implementation timeline;

customer-branding and styling; and

ability to innovate and respond to customer and legislative needs rapidly.

We believe that we compete effectively based upon all of these criteria, and that we are likely to continue to retain a high percentage of our customers from year to year. Nonetheless, we believe that the increasing acceptance of automated solutions in the healthcare marketplace and the adoption of more sophisticated technology and continuing legislative reform will result in increased competition, including potentially from large software companies with greater resources than ours. Other companies might develop superior or more economical service offerings that our customers could find more attractive than our offerings. Moreover, the regulatory landscape might shift in a direction that is more strategically advantageous to competitors.