Six superannuation consultancies prove stand outs

The best superannuation consultancies have been revealed to be QMV, Rice Warner and Deloitte for tender and other consultancy services, and JANA, Frontier and Willis Towers Watson for consulting on investment decisions.

The top performing consultancies were determined based on the results of a Super Review survey that ran throughout June, that also showed that the most common reason for using a consulting firm was for tender consultancy. This included the selection of group insurers, administrators, custodians, and technology providers.

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Nearly half of respondents, at 42.11 per cent, reported that they often use consultants for tenders, while 15.79 per cent said that they always do. A further 21.05 per cent said that they sometimes do, while the same portion never did.

The best consultant in this area would be crowned the inaugural Consultancy of the Year for Tender and Other Services at the Super Fund of the Year Awards on 15 August, with Deloitte, QMV and Rice Warner being the finalists.

The next most frequent use of super consultancies, according to survey respondents, was fund selection, with 41.67 per cent of respondents sometimes or always utilising this service. Significantly however, an equal portion said that they never used consultants for fund selection, suggesting that investment decisions are increasingly made in-house.

Furthering this trend, the majority of respondents never sought assistance from consultants on asset allocation, while equal portions of 18.18 per cent sometimes or always did.

Again, the best consultant in the area of investments, covering both fund selection and asset allocation, would be announced at the Super Fund of the Year Awards (to which tickets can be purchased here), with Frontier, JANA and Willis Towers Watson the three finalists in the Consultant of the Year for Investment Decisions category.

Finally, many respondents used superannuation consultancies for reasons other than those specifically listed in the survey. These included research and analytics, industry knowledge, core superannuation system development, governance advice, business analysis, process analysis, strategic advice, investment surveys, and guidance on marketing, technology and member experience.

There was also a heavy emphasis on using superannuation consultants on project work, with respondents saying they engaged firms for help with project resourcing and ad hoc project work, business and system consulting for projects, project delivery, and project management.