For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their life’s work in public service. The pension fund serves more than 1.7 million members and nearly 3,100 employers in the CalPERS retirement system; additionally, it administers benefits for 1.4 million members and their families in their health program. As of June 30, 2014, CalPERS’ total fund market value stood at approximately $302 billion.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is the largest public pension fund in the United States. As customer and stakeholder demands evolved, CalPERS leadership targeted the replacement of its unsupported legacy systems with a consolidated and modernized information system that would enable the expansion of self-service for CalPERS members and employers.
In 2006, CalPERS selected Accenture as its systems integration (SI) partner for the journey ahead. The implementation would involve converting 3.2 billion health and pension records from CalPERS independent legacy systems into a streamlined web-based platform involving 2.3 million lines of code.
Accenture committed 200-plus SI to guide the design, build and testing of the new system. Working with CalPERS deep subject matter experts, developers and testers, the project forged ahead as “one team” with a shared vision.
The task ahead involved the full integration of 109 siloed systems into a single system with a common “look and feel” across all health and benefit services. To achieve this, the Accenture team designed and built a streamlined technology engine to serve as the single solution point for managing pension and health benefits—in essence unifying a highly diverse community of 3,125 employer organizations and over 1.7 million members with vastly different needs.
Enhanced user effectiveness: At launch, more than 1,600 internal users at CalPERS went from using up to 10 legacy systems daily to just one.
Dependable, fast online service: Over 460,000 page views are accessed daily, with an average response time of less than two seconds across the exchange.
Greater automation: The new system automatically factors in member status changes for Retirement benefits, eliminating the need for a Benefits Specialist to handle or review a request. The system also automatically recalculates benefit amounts when statuses change or earnings limits are exceeded.
Broad self-service adoption: By December 2011, 93 percent of the 3,000 state and public agency employers, and 100 percent of the 125 business providers used my|CalPERS to manage benefits. Today, all employers use the system.
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