In the early 1990s, I got involved with our agency management system user group. The concept made a lot of sense to me. I didn't have all of the answers--and I suspected nobody else did--but by working together, we could each learn and achieve more than if we tried to muddle through the system on our own.

I threw myself into user group activities, serving first on our international user group's product development committee.

I also became involved with our local chapter in British Columbia, where I lived at the time.

Then the unthinkable happened. Our leading competitor in town bought the same agency management system we had, and I found myself wondering about the implications of "sleeping with the enemy."

Guess what? The sun rose the next day, just as it had since the beginning of time. My paycheck appeared the following week, just as it had for years. And I continued to learn more about how the system could help my operation. I suspect those who worked for my competitor did, as well.

The collaboration between agencies--competitors, even--did not compromise our independence. More than a dozen years later, our agency continues to profit from technology and workflow improvements, in large part because of what we learn from, and give back to our user group.

For the past year, I've been honored to serve as president of our international user group. I continue to be impressed by agents' and brokers' willingness to share experiences, successes and challenges with fellow users--and to work together for a common outcome.

This happens in meetings, conference calls, Web seminars and even online, in news-group style exchanges.

Through my involvement, I've also had opportunities to participate in industrywide efforts that placed me side-by-side with principals who use (dare I say it?) other agency management systems.

These collaborative efforts are part of a growing movement to find broader solutions to problems we all face.

Participants faithfully leave their user group hats at the door and work on common problems. Whether representing tens of thousands of users or, perhaps, just hundreds, each participant brings insights and perspectives that benefit the entire group.

Our shared work is delivering results, making technology and workflows work better and more profitably.

Through AUGIE (the ACORD User Groups Information Exchange), for instance, diverse user groups worked together to develop a resource that agents and brokers can use to get more from their dealings with carrier marketing reps.

We've created a guide to help agencies understand commercial lines download issues, and how best to implement it.

We've crafted tools to help document cost savings available from technology.

And we're working to drive real-time technology throughout the entire distribution system.

More than that, we've increased dialogue with vendors and carriers, building on the work ACORD has done in standards development and what ACT (the Agents Council for Technology, launched by the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America) has done with agency automation.

In these collaborative efforts, several benefits have become apparent.

First is the exposure to other viewpoints and methodologies. It's impossible to bring a diverse group of professionals together without gaining a wealth of new ideas and perspectives. If the collaboration ended with no product, this would, in itself, be positive.

But it doesn't end there. Having a diverse group work together on a project or initiative broadens ownership of the process and the end product. This makes communication and implementation easier.

For instance, the various user groups that took part in developing industrywide solutions each can go back to their members and explain the result and encourage all members to get on board.

Finally, collaboration generates critical mass that can help in adoption and implementation. Having several user groups develop and present ideas to carriers or vendors carries more validity and weight than a request from a lone user group.

Observing these benefits has created in me a desire to find new opportunities for collaboration, including within the user group as well as in agent and broker associations.

There are many objectives we can achieve by presenting a unified front, one that comes by joint development work. This can involve local and not-so-local initiatives.

For instance, as regional issues come up, it's easy to foresee local brokers coming together to drive positive change.

The same holds true within the office, especially as it relates to technology. By bringing more staff members--including some of the younger ones--into our strategic and tactical planning work, we'll see a broad range of new and innovative ideas.

Who knows better how to handle instant messaging or a blog than our next generation of leaders? At the same time, we'll boost acceptance of our direction and make communicating that much easier.

In the end, that will help our operations profit even more from technology and workflow improvements.

Special Reports /

Technology Collaboration Pays Dividends As Even Competitors Help Each Other Out

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