Abracadabra?

There was no magic solution to solve the marketing and salesneeds of a life insurer and its agents, but an integrated solution?Thats no illusion.

Insurance carriers often look for a charmed solution to theirproblems. Everyones always chasing the magic system, the magicsolution, says John Kawauchi, senior vice president, marketing, forJackson National Life (JNL). What JNL found, though, is it neededan integrated solution to bind together the carriers vendors,internal groups, and technologynot magic.
Within Jackson, many of the marketing procurement, operations,distribution, and fulfillment services were under the direction ofthe marketing staff. In our department, we happen to control itall, which presents us with a unique situation, states Kawauchi.The mantra Ive used for the past few years is better, faster,cheaper, which I think, if you can do all that simultaneously, willput you in the drivers seat with respect to your capabilities vs.those of the competition.

But performing a task better, faster, and cheaper sometimes canbring up conflicts, Kawauchi says: It wasnt about just cuttingcosts. If that were the case, wed print in black and white. Itwasnt about just doing things better, because we all know doingthings better often means a higher price. Usually, you cant do allthree at once, because if you want to try to do all of this faster,it gets very difficult.

There are several print management technologies available tocontrol a businesss print-on-demand needs or loop the business intovendors that can do traditional offset printing. JNL has internalprint capabilities via its home office, which does a lot of thesimpler print jobs. All of this needed to be managed under onevirtual capability, explains Kawauchi. From this emanated ourdual-distribution strategy, which helped solve our shippingequation. We found rather than ship from one point, the key tomanaging the shipping equation was to reduce the amount of airshipping. You really can do that only if you have strategicdistribution centers placed close to your customers.

What JNL found valuable about Arasys Technologies is the vendorlinks all the internal and external parties to create one virtualcapability, Kawauchi notes. Compared with many of the products andvendor solutions we looked at, its a total supply/demand-chainmanagement system, he says.

Arasys gives the customer real-time views into availability,usage, and spending with decision support and Web-based ordering.Existing and future suppliers are integrated into the system tosupport business processes and rules.

JNL didnt use a traditional RFP pro-cess. We were introduced to[Arasys] by Towne AllPoints Communications, our distribution vendorin L.A., Kawauchi says. Rather than build an in-house capability,we chose to go with Arasys. After also viewing other competitiveproducts, we readily accepted, because the solution allowed us toset up two distribution centers. We implemented it in about threemonths. If you look at a conversion or transition of thismagnitudewe certainly didnt stop business and close up shop for awhileit happened rather quickly. Once we tested it, the decisionwas made not just to sublease it from Towne but to engage in ourdirect relationship with Arasys. JNL has distribution centers inLos Angeles and Chicago, and Kawauchis marketing staff works inDenver. It allows us to operate here in Denver despite the fact weare several thousand miles away from our facilities, which manycompanies are reluctant to do, he adds.

Kawauchi leaves no doubt this has been a successfulimplementation for JNL. Our shipping budget was $1.7 million at itsheight, and now were running about $950,000, he reports. As amanagement tool, it has saved us a considerable amount of money.Our print budget has gone from $9 million down to $4 million. Backorders no longer are a problem. We were totally reactionary before.We couldnt even anticipate what was going to be out of stock or themagnitude of it.

Even more important is how Arasys affects the JNL operations.Most of our anecdotal evidence suggests complaints are way down,says Kawauchi. Sales- people do not want a lack of material gettingin the way of their sales, so we clearly hear complaints when thathappens, and [complaints] have pretty much gone away. ROBERT REGISHYLE
Case File

THE PROBLEM
Life insurer needed a better tool to
manage marketing and sales functions.

THE COMPANY
Jackson National Life Insurance
Web Site: www.jnl.com
Total Revenues: $3 billion

THE SOLUTION
Enterprise Solution from
Arasys Technologies
Web Site: www.arasys.com