Some companies believe that the real work in a new softwareinstallation is done after the contracts have been signed and thehands have been shaken. Unfortunately, waiting that long has turnedmany of those projects into lousy deals for both sides of thetable.
Security Benefit Group made sure it was getting everything itneeded from the product it purchased from NaviSys by managing theproject every step of the way. Today, 14 months after going live,both sides can see the process worked nearly flawlessly.
In September 1999, Security Benefit felt the time had come to movefrom its multiple legacy systems to a single platform. David Keith,vice president of information technology, said the insurance andmoney management company wanted flexible and adaptablearchitecture.
Security Benefit contacted seven vendors and asked each to visitits Topeka, Kans., office to give demonstrations of their products.Four were eliminated at that point, and the Security Benefit teambegan studying the scorecards it had compiled on the remainingthree. A team of eight from Security Benefit, representing thefinance department, product development, IT, and administration,met with the vendors a second time and eliminated anotherone.
At this point, the company brought in additional employees from theactuarial and administrative departments to run mock scenarios onthe two remaining systems. Again, scorecards were used. Finally,seven months after the RFI, NaviSys won the deal.
To ensure that the project would get off to a smooth start, aprogram-management officer (PMO) was put in place by SecurityBenefit. Keith describes the PMO as an overseer on large-scaleprojects. It gave us a good, strong guideline. With the PMO filingweekly status reports, problems could not drift along and werequickly resolved.
One significant problem Keith pointed out was that SecurityBenefits IT staff had no experience with Unix or Oracle when itselected NaviSys. This called for a five-month training programprior to the installation. We went through a lot of dry runs tounderstand what it could do, Keith said.
Once trained in Unix, the staff went to work with the NaviSyspeople to learn how to administer the system and how to providesystem support. Venette Davis, Security Benefits senior vicepresident for customer management, then took her customer servicestaff through training. We started with new products only, and thenwe began to add existing products, she said. Training was madeeasier because Security Benefit had not done a lot of customizingto the home office product. It was more of an off-the-shelfproduct, Davis said. Keith agreed: There werent a lot of uniqueconfigurations, he said.
Davis said the company is pleased with how the product has beenperforming, particularly the speed and ease of product development.Thats one of the major successes of the new platform, she said.Five new products were added last year. Security Benefit hasroughly a third of its annuity contracts on the system and expectsto have the remaining contracts done by April.
Overall, things have gone smoothly, Keith said. We developed a goodrelationship. The project management from both sides can bedirectly linked to its success. From his perspective, the PMO wasthe key. The structure worked well for us, he said. Its one of thereasons we can handle these large-scale projects. It drivesaccountability.
Projects of this scope can be disastrous if both sides arentworking together every step of the way. There hasnt been any fingerpointing in this deal because each of them became true partners.ROBERT REGIS HYLE

THE PROBLEM: MANAGE A MAJOR PROJECT SO EVERYTHING GOES ASPLANNED.

THE COMPANY: SECURITY BENEFIT GROUP
LINES: VARIABLE ANNUITIES, MUTUAL FUNDS, RETIREMENT PLANS
ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT: $10 BILLION
WEB SITE: www.securitybenefit.com

THE SOFTWARE: HOME OFFICE
FROM NAVISYS
WEB SITE: www.navisys.com