While a company rarely complains about too much business, it may find itself under siege from the projects that business generates. For Fortis Benefits Insurance Co., which had been expanding through acquisition, it became imperative that important projects, especially integration of the dental benefits business it purchased from Protective Life on Dec. 31, 2001, keep moving forward. The dental people needed something quick, says Bob Bullard, IT director for Fortis, based in Kansas City, Mo. Their e-mail systems werent even synching up. They couldnt get anything to each other unless they went outside our firewall through a personal e-mail account.
However, integration of systems couldnt be done quickly or correctly, Bullard notes, unless Fortis got its hands on a project management system. The company established a project management office, but the office needed a tool to allow the company to communicate more openly. We looked for a tool that would primarily help us improve our project collaboration and project communication, he says. When Fortis closed the deal for the dental benefits division, the project load increased tremendously. We acquired a huge organization with its own separate set of systems, says Kathy Kelly, second vice president, marketing and sales communications. That alone involved over 100 different systems projects.
Bullard says the IT department had already done some homework on project management tools when the time came to go shopping. We had a good feel for what the tool market had available at that time, he notes. We had to see which tool best suited our requirements and had the flexibility to grow with us as our requirements expanded.
A three-month study narrowed the field to three products before Bullard and his team recommended the purchase of eProject Enter-prise from eProject, Inc. Bullard explains the products flexibility was key to the selection. The insurer decided to try it on a limited basis, purchasing 50 seats. It was a minimal investment, says Bullard.
Another important decision was to allow eProject to host the solution. We decided to go on the fly with [eProjects] services, Bullard says. We involved the auditors and our privacy officer in that decision to ensure the appropriate security pieces were in place, and [eProjects] service level agreements were at least on par with the type of service we would provide if we were bringing it in-house.
With eProject, companies can see whos working on which projects, whats on schedule, and whats not. It gives top executives consolidated program views, leverages historical data to improve future plans, and anticipates potential problems while there is still time to react.
Training was broken down into three groupsadministrators, project participants, and project managers. We walked them through the product and its capabilities, Bullard says. Thats how we got out of the gate initially. We also have someone assigned as our tool administrator, and if anybody has any training needs or needs assistance, hes the contact person.
A lot of time was spent by Fortis setting up templates so the system works easier for users, he adds, especially with staffers who arent project managers and jump in and out of the system throughout the day.
Most of the reaction from the user base has been good, says Bullard. It pumps out a lot of e-mail letting people know theres something new going on with their project. Having the system hosted by eProject also has worked well. Weve had very few outages, and theyve been good about communicating with us when service is going to be unavailable. Usually thats at a time when our user community is not impacted, he says.
Since the adoption, Fortis has expanded to over 500 seats. This is probably one of the most common desktop applications that we use, says Bullard.
Fortis has about half of its current projects entered into the system since going live in first-half 2002. Bullard says some company officials underestimated the amount of work involved. We had a lot of major initiatives going on, he explains. For us to be able to squeeze this in and still make headway with other initiatives shows the company has done rather well.
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