Consulting firm HR Path in May 2018 acquired Ataraxis, headquartered in Belgium and operating in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain and France. Ataraxis is a Workday specialist (Workday is a provider of enterprise cloud software for finance and human resources). Ataraxis will become the dedicated Workday practice of HR Path. The senior management team, Tom Hillen, Wouter Van den Avont and Jan Snyers will become HR Path partners. Ataraxis

EY in November 2017 announced a partnership with Concur to develop services that help global business travelers manage tax and immigration compliance risks via Concur’s App Center. The integrated offering will capture relevant travel and business activity data within Concur. Using EY tax and immigration technology, the integration will analyze Concur data to make real-time assessments of a business traveler’s tax and immigration obligations before they travel. Corporate users

Bug Insights’ human resources analytics and rewards optimization offering in November 2017 was acquired by Deloitte Consulting. Viewed as a critical step on the journey to creating a total relationship with employees, the offering allows employers the ability to determine what their employees value most from their rewards programs. It leverages trade-off analysis and employee preference measurements to give companies specific information about their employees’ attitudes, helping to design

Swiss Life in October 2017 entered into a long-term partnership with Swiss business software provider for small businesses, bexio. Swiss Life becomes one of the largest shareholders of bexio and Swiss Life Switzerland CEO Markus Leibundgut joins the Board of Directors. The start-up already has over 10 000 customers and employs a staff of 50 in Switzerland. Bexio focuses on small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and offers web-based services – including

Zenefits in October 2017 announced a major change in its strategy. It now intends to become the technology backbone for the employee benefits industry by linking carriers, brokers, companies, and employees with its Zenefits Certified Broker Partner Program and Zenefits Ben Connect. This will allow Zenefits to cooperate with brokers rather than compete against them. The Zenefits Broker Partner Program was launched with the announcement of a partnership with

Activehours, a mobile app that gives people access to their pay directly from their smartphones whenever they need it, has announced a $39 million investment round led by Andreessen Horowitz, along with participation from earlier-stage investors Matrix Partners, Ribbit Capital, and March Capital Partners. Launched in 2014, Activehours has added employees from more than 25,000 companies including Starbucks, Apple, Home Depot and Target, who use the app. Activehours charges

Managing regulatory and compliance risk in the face of constantly evolving rules and guidelines is a significant challenge for both the payers and the providers who make up the United States’ healthcare industry, creating a market need for systems that can consistently support regulatory, reimbursement and compliance professionals. A June 2017 white paper from management consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, The Increasing Challenge of Managing Regulatory and Compliance Risk,

Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon plc, in May 2017 announced the launch of its PathWise Solutions Group business solutions package, bringing the integrated enterprise High Performance Computing (HPC) business platform within compliance for IFRS 17 standards for insurance contracts. This standard requires companies to significantly enhance their valuation systems and processes; specifically in areas such as data management, model management, and computational power

Management consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in April 2017 announced findings by its Transformational Health team that suggest that analytics adoption among U.S. healthcare payers and providers is not consistent, and that some health systems might utilize advanced enterprise data processing architecture to derive patient-specific insight for every episode of care. Healthcare analytics is widely considered as the key enabler of value-based care, and robust use of analytics allows

Zenefits in June 2016 announced it will cut 106 jobs, or about 9% of its workforce, and close an Arizona sales operation as it addresses licensing and governance issues. GBV in February 2016 had published another report on Zenefits, Zenefits hits more turbulence. In total, Zenefits has now announced about 350 layoffs or approximately one quarter of its workforce, mostly in sales; including resignations, there remain fewer than 1,100

Connecture, an IT company that provides web-based solutions to the health insurance industry, in June 2016 acquired its Chicago-based competitor ConnectedHealth, a benefits technology company that offers an e-commerce platform that helps businesses control costs and ease the process of shopping for personalized insurance benefits online. ConnectedHealth is a private company and was founded in 2009. Based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Connecture is a provider of a web-based consumer shopping,

Modern Survey, a Minneapolis, U.S.A.-based employee survey and talent analytics solutions provider, has been acquired by Aon Hewitt in February 2016. In search of new sources of revenues, large employee benefits consulting firms are diversifying into and/or expanding employee engagement services. Modern Survey is responsible for software solutions in the areas of talent analytics, onboarding, 360o feedback, engagement, retention, performance, and measurement. Modern Survey’s current offerings are visible at