Case Study: OppenheimerFunds

Founded in 1960, OppenheimerFunds, Inc. (OFI), is one of the nation's largest and most respected mutual fund managers in the United States. As of December 31, 2004, the company and its subsidiaries managed assets of more than $170 billion, including those in more than 65 mutual funds with over 7 million shareholder accounts. OFI is a member of the MassMutual Financial Group.

OppenheimerFunds.com

Challenge:

Mutual fund companies, like OppenheimerFunds, rely heavily on third-party financial advisors to provide new business. Traditionally, the enrollment process uses a paper-based processing workflow. Inaccurate and incomplete forms are a main reason for processing delays.

To improve service and reduce cost, OppenheimerFunds wanted to integrate pre-filled electronic PDF forms that could be passed between OppenheimerFunds, advisors and clients. Enhancing the advisor/client experience is of major concern to the e-commerce group at OFI.

• Pre-fill PDF enrollment forms

  OppenheimerFunds offers a secure portal for financial advisors. Once on this portal, advisors can select from a library of enrollment forms. To save time and increase the accuracy of forms, it was a requirement to pre-fill the enrollment applications with advisor data from the OppenheimerFunds database.
  

• Deliver a PDF form that could be edited and saved by agents and clients

  Once an enrollment form is downloaded from the OppenheimerFunds portal, it needs to be freely edited and saved -- without costly client side software. After editing, forms need to be shared with clients possibly going back and forth a few times before completion.
  

Solution:

• Java programming to pre-fill PDF forms on the OppenheimerFunds portal
  
  FormRouter worked with the engineering team at OppenheimerFunds to write some code that would automatically pre-fill PDF enrolment forms with advisor data. This saves the advisor time and guarantees consistency of contact data pre-filled into the form.
  
  
• Reader Extend the PDF enrolment forms
  
  By using FormRouter’s Reader Extensions Service, OppenheimerFunds PDF enrollment forms can now be filled out and saved locally using Adobe’s free Reader. This enables financial advisors and their clients to fill out, save and share PDF documents without the need to install software.
  

Benefits:

FormRouter’s Reader Extensions Service enables usage rights within PDF files that “turn on” functionality within the ubiquitous Adobe Reader. When a user launches a rights-enabled PDF document in Adobe Reader, they are able to take advantage of added capabilities such as saving the form offline, digital signatures and 2-D bar codes.

With over 800 million copies installed worldwide, PDF forms opened with the free Adobe Reader was the best choice

Summary:

Integrating an easy-to-use, more accurate enrollment process for OppenheimerFunds saves time and money. It also creates strategic advantage over competitors with inefficient paper-based workflows.

In addition, the Reader Extended PDF enrollment forms are capable of accepting digital signatures and 2D barcodes, which leave future form enhancement opportunities open.