By Nancy Doucette nancyd@in.net
Suppose your agency management system vendor announced it was no longer going to support the system your agency had come to depend on. Or suppose you weren't satisfied with the answers your vendor was giving you regarding the Year 2000 compliancy of your system. Where would you turn for guidance?
Perhaps if you had a friend in your user group whose avocation was computer hardware consulting, you could call upon that person to put together a recipe for a successful system search.
That's pretty much the way it happened for John Frankel. He was well known within the regional and national user group for the system his agency was using. His interest in automation dated back to the 1960s when he served on the IIAA's Electronic Processing Implementation Committee (EPIC). In the industry for over 40 years, he had owned and managed an independent agency for 30 of those years and had been in the automation consulting business for over 25 years. People trusted him.
Members of the regional user group who were concerned either that their systems were facing extinction or about Year 2000 issues began calling Frankel last year, looking for guidance. Many of the agencies contacting him had been on their system for more than 10 years. The marketplace had changed significantly since these agencies had installed their current system. Agents on more up-to-date systems were also contacting him to find out about other systems that might be more functional than the one they were running. By mid-November he was getting 20-30 calls a week.
Frankel knew he needed someone who was knowledgeable about internal operations to complement his strength in the computer hardware and firmware area. The agencies contacting him suggested he get in touch with Virginia Bates, well known for her Vendor Comparison Workshop and her expertise in the areas of system functionality and workflow. Bates and Frankel now assist small groups of agencies that are in the system search mode.
The groups are assembled by Frankel who is familiar with the agencies by way of their mutual involvement in the user group. That familiarity allows him to eliminate competitive issues by selecting agencies from various parts of the state. So far there have been two groups consisting of agencies based in Frankel's home state of Ohio.
Once the group is established, the participating agencies are sent a vendor comparison matrix, a tool developed by Bates which consists of a set of 30-35 areas or functions in which the vendors vary. The agency prioritizes the areas that are important to the organization. This gives agency and vendor alike a clear idea of what the agency is looking for in a system. "It puts the agency in charge of the demo, rather than the vendor, and that's key," she says.
This "self-analysis" also gives the agency the opportunity to make sure it's prepared to take advantage of this new electronic tool. Perhaps the agency's old system didn't have marketing capabilities. The matrix gets the agency thinking about the new system as a marketing aid. Or perhaps the producers haven't been required to use the old system. The agency may need to think about organizing the producers' sales efforts differently once the new system is in place. This process results in a more sophisticated, educated user who understands things better, Bates explains.
She says the matrix--which is sent to the vendors with the group's request for proposal--gets the vendor in line with the agency's needs as well.
Hal Goodrich is an agency principal for Consolidated Insurance Agency, Inc., based in Springfield, Ohio. He participated in the first group which Frankel and Bates facilitated and says he wanted to get an early start on this project to avoid "the Year 2000 rush." (According to the IIAA's Year 2000 White Paper, at least a quarter of this country's agencies--some 7,800 of them--will have to upgrade to a newer version of their agency management system to be Year 2000 compliant.)
Consolidated decided to switch to Applied Systems' WinTAM. The agency will be the first agency from this first group to "go live." The agency will do so on March 30, 1998. Coincidentally, the other three agencies in this group also chose to switch to Applied Systems. Applied considers the entire number of workstations purchased by the group which Goodrich says yields a number of advantages--especially in the areas of conversion, training and support.
For this large group installation, Applied will send a trainer to Ohio to conduct the key person training. Mark Rusch, vice president of the national accounts division for Applied Systems, worked with John Frankel on this project. Rusch explains that normally, training is done at one of Applied's regional training centers. For this group, though, Applied is putting together a customized training package and is assigning a trainer who previously worked for the vendor that Consolidated and the other agencies in the group are leaving. Rusch explains: "We're building a training program specifically for these users (who are all coming off the same system). It's going to be customized with terminology, cross-referencing and workflow design based on how their workflows are on their old system."
Rusch says the efforts of Frankel and Bates also contributed to the development of this customized training program. By determining the participants' level of Windows understanding and their willingness to change, Applied got a better feel for what would be a sufficient number of training days for this group.
While it's convenient not to have to travel to the Chicago regional training center, Goodrich says he's equally pleased that the class will consist of key members from this group only. Normally, sessions at the regional training centers consist of agency representatives who are migrating from a host of different systems. Questions are likely to reflect that diversity and may not be pertinent to all members at the session.
Although the first group was unanimous in its vendor choice, it's not mandatory that all the agencies select the same vendor, Frankel explains. The benefits of coming together as a group to share perspectives don't diminish if the agencies are split on which vendor they want. But, the greater the number of workstations committing to a particular vendor, the more leverage he has when he visits the vendors to negotiate system cost and value-addeds on behalf of the group. (As a reference point the vendor of choice initially prepares a proposal based on each agency in the group coming to them as a single agency. Then a second proposal is prepared, reflecting the total number of workstations from how ever many agencies are going with that particular vendor.)
Just as cost savings are shared by group members, the fees for the consultants are spread over the group as well. Having the input of Frankel and Bates was invaluable according to Meg Herman, a representative from Bryan, Ohio-based Andres O'Neil Lowe Agency. She participated in the first group with Hal Goodrich. In fact, the key people from these two agencies will be together for the system training later this month.
Herman and Goodrich agree that the consultants cut through the fog that sometimes accompanies system sales. "John and Virginia told us from a historical viewpoint what problems other agencies had experienced in the conversion of particular data. They told us where the pitfalls were, what data wouldn't convert," Goodrich says. As a result, the implementation will be smoother...no surprises when some transactionally-filed data doesn't convert. "We have to prepare ahead of time by running certain reports."
That's all part of the implementation process which Bates and Frankel discuss with the group. Once Consolidated selected its "go live" date--based on personnel availability, the agency's fiscal year and their heavy renewal time, not to mention the vendor's availability--Bates helped the agency work backwards to establish landmark dates by which the agency had to accomplish certain training and resolve certain conversion issues.
The second group that Frankel brought together was in the process of viewing the first round of vendor demos at press time. The vendors visit each of the participating agencies to demonstrate their system, taking into consideration the preferences the agency specified on its matrix. Following the individual demos, the group gathers for a meeting with Bates and Frankel to compare notes.
Even at this early stage of the process, Marlys Wachtelhausen of Thomas-Fenner-Woods Agency in Columbus, Ohio, is excited about the possibilities the group concept offers. "You don't see everything that a system is capable of doing when you're seeing the demo in your agency setting," she maintains. "But the different people in the group see different aspects of the systems. More heads, eyes and ears are a benefit of the group."
And while this may sound like a lot of work (and it is), Bates is quick to point out another of the benefits the group enjoys about the complementary nature of Frankel's and hers style: "We're serious about fun," Bates says with a laugh. "To take a process like this that's a little bit strenuous and frustrating, expensive and scary and make it an enjoyable, collegial process has a lot going for it." *
For additional information...If you're interested in more information from John Frankel about the system search group process, he may be reached at:
Insurance Agency Automation Implementation Services (IAAIS)
3536 Longwood Dr.
Medina, OH 44256-8400
Phone: (330) 239-4006
Fax: (330) 239-4005
E-mail: iaais@worldnet.att.net
* The system search group process includes two meetings with John Frankel and Virginia Bates in addition to individual agency meetings with the selected vendors. Frankel serves as coordinator of the process, checking with the participating agencies weekly to be sure they're on track with their assigned tasks.
* Each agency forms an automation committee consisting of key personnel to manage the agency-specific tasks that are part of the search process. One of the first tasks for these committees is completion of the vendor comparison matrix.
* Based on the matrices, Frankel and Bates decide which vendors are best qualified to meet the needs of the group.
* Frankel corresponds with the selected vendors and asks that they contact the participating agencies for a one-day demo. He includes an outline of the group participants, the objectives and the matrices.
* Following the one-day demos, members of the group convene to discuss their perceptions of the vendors. Between this meeting and the next one, a two-day session which will take place in approximately six weeks, the agency will decide on a vendor.
* Several days prior to the second meeting the agencies inform Frankel of their vendor choice. The announcement is made at the second meeting. Contract signing date(s) is selected. Live dates and implementation and training schedules are created.
* Frankel negotiates cost and training with the vendor(s).
Virginia Bates observes that one of the benefits of the group approach is its time effectiveness. "There are so many agencies right now looking for automation and so few people in the industry who are familiar with all the issues and able to give them meaningful help, that the availability of these helpers is very limited. There aren't enough of us to go around," she observes. For agencies seeking help, this means they get in line for this consulting assistance. And then once they're ready to move on their automation decision, they find the vendors are backlogged too. So the agencies wait some more.
"The vendors have so many agencies in the pipeline that want to convert that there's a time crunch. The vendors cannot manufacture the kind of installation, conversion, training and support human resources that they'd like to."
Frankel and Bates try to keep the agencies in their system search groups realistic about the long implementation timelines that vendors are imposing. They'd prefer not to rush the process and then have to spend months correcting things. Says Bates: "Let's spend months getting it right so when the live date happens, we have a good fit."
©COPYRIGHT: The Rough Notes Magazine, 1998