Prior to co-founding Abenity, Inc. in late 2005, Brian Roland worked with Sprint for 5 years designing and developing online employee procurement portals for Fortune 100 companies. Brianʼs role with Sprint involved working with the HR departments of these companies to increase employee engagement through the provision of custom web applications that featured Sprint products and services according to the unique terms of their Sprint contract.

Sprint believed there was a communication gap between their clientsʼ procurement department and their Human Resources department, causing the Sprint employee discount to be underutilized by employees. As Brian worked closely with many of Sprintʼs largest corporate accounts, including H&R Block, The Walt Disney Company, Northrop Grumman, Oracle, the U.S. Army, Boeing, and IBM, he realized that the issue causing underutilization was not a communication breakdown between departments, but rather an effect of insufficient resources within Human Resources departments. For example, one client had two HR representatives spending a large amount of their time and energy maintaining an internal website with over 300 employee discounts. This amount of attention was necessary only because HR did not have the technological resources required to keep up with daily offer updates and changes, new vendor requests, new category classifications, multiple redemption options, employee complaints, and vendor complaints. Brian immediately recognized the need for a third party to administer the details of their discount program, allowing the HR department to stay focused on the day-to-day requirements of their business while continuing to provide and grow a world-class employee discount program.

While performing market research, Brian discovered that there were very few options available for companies seeking a third party discount provider, and that many of the providers in existence were simply using a companyʼs need for support as an opportunity to profit from advertising and insurance sales, not as an opportunity to increase the companyʼs operational efficiencies through the development of custom applications. With this in mind, Brian partnered with a custom software developer, formed a Board of Directors, and co-founded Abenity, Inc. to create a direct approach to employee discount management, offering companies a complete and cost-effective solution for providing employee discounts without creating HR headaches.

Abenityʼs success is due to their ability to listen to clients, understand their needs, and respond quickly with custom solutions. This focus on innovation continues to increase program efficiencies and participation through the development of new features like the Abenity Client Admin, Vendor Admin, Mobile Coupons, Recommendations, Video Tutorials, and the Voluntary Benefits Center. Several early adopters of Abenity were Brianʼs Sprint clients; the Walt Disney Company, Oracle, and the U.S. Army. Today, Abenity continues to attract top national employers and recently began managing employee discount programs for US Bank and Virgin America.

• Abenity is not a destination website requiring huge set-up fees.
• Abenity is not an advertising platform where vendors pay premiums to gain exposure to participating employees.
• Abenity is not a shiny “deals website” founded by insurance brokers just to get their foot in the door of large companies in order to sell insurance products.
• Abenity does not grossly mark up and require companies to purchase and issue plastic cards to participating employees.

Abenity is a highly customizable web-based application offering a managed services approach in order to equip HR departments with the resources required to provide their employees with a world-class discount program.

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PREVIOUSLY FROM ABENITY:

Abenity Insider: Abenity Neighborhood Discounts. [Read More]

Abenity Insider: Managing 100,000 Discounts from Abenity Vendors. [Read More]

Abenity Insider: I’m Not Drinking Dirty Water. [Read More]