While some corporate intranets are deluged by local sites that drown internal business users in too much or irrelevant information, other insurance companies know how to get organized from the start. For external partners, a carriers extranet or Web portal also needs to be designed effectively to ensure needed data is efficiently exchanged and deals are easily done. Here are some proven ways to take control of a critical resource and keep it from running amok.
BY ROBERT REGIS HYLE
The subject of intranets either will evoke a smug grin or a look of horror on the faces of IT professionals. The grins come from technology pros who work for insurance carriers that have figured out an effective use of intranets (and extranets) for the good of the enterprise. The horror others deal with can be summarized by what Nate Root, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, learned about computer giant Hewlett Packard: At one time, HP had more than 1,200 corporate intranets.
Ken Hittel, vice president in charge of the corporate Internet department at New York Life, calls such multiple sites guerrilla intranets. Most organizations have had to deal with this issue, but three years ago New York Life put together a cross-department team to rein in the sites. We wanted to integrate as many of the local intranets as possible on one corporate platform, he says. Weve succeeded at that. There still are local department intranets, but they serve purely local interests. They make no attempt to serve the enterprise.
Kara Coyne is research director with the Nielsen Norman Group, a usability think tank with a focus on how the Web can be used effectively. She asserts many companies have allowed intranets to run wild. They all are designed differently. They duplicate content. Its a crazy fiasco, she says. Weve asked clients how many pages were on their intranet, and they said, We have no idea. We cant figure that out. They dont even know whats out there.
By contrast, Northwestern Mutual did not have the problem of multiple sites to deal with, and Martha Valerio, vice president, information services, believes that is one of the reasons the IS department was able to build what the company regards as a successful and popular intranet. The carrier has three major goals for its intranet site, known as Mutualnet, according to Deb Hall, Mutualnet coordinator. It must meet business needssupporting personal and organizational productivity, she says. It must provide a reliable, centralized information source for employees. It must provide a platform for collaboration.
Companies that have not gained control of their intranets are losing a powerful communication tool. At New York Life, Hittels group is in the process of developing metrics to measure the effectiveness and contribution of the intranet to the enterprise. There are obvious things, such as print savings, he says. We just put up [on the site] a standard HR piece that is going to save us $50,000 this year and about $10,000 a year going forward. There are various manuals weve made available on the site as reference materials that save anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000 a year in pure costs. Were also looking at time savings for employees. How much time can an employee save by being able to access quickly and easily accurate, up-to-date information on the site as opposed to making phone calls [to find the information]?
Extra, Extra
While many corporations still are finding their way with corporate intranet sites to serve internal business customers, private Web sites for external partnersparticularly agents and producersare enjoying great success. Whether known as an extranet or a Web portal, carriers have found ways to make these sites hum.
Prudential Financial calls its Web portal the Navigator. It allows our agents to experience the Web look and feel whether they are connected to the network or disconnected, says Tony Melchione, vice president, distribution technology, for Prudential. Each Prudential agent is issued a laptop, and when the laptop is launched, it goes right to Navigator, he adds. Our agents can go into a clients house, and they can do a new-business application there. They can pull up client information. They can show clients a financial summary of their overall portfolio with Prudential, he explains.
Prudential rolled out Navigator 18 months ago. This was a big step in the right direction for us, says Melchione. We push a lot of information to our agents. We probably have more than 100 different solutions that run on the laptopwhether financial planning tools, estate planning, contact management, or CRM solutions. [Agents] went from a desktop that had many icons to an organized view of whats important to them on the home page of the portal as soon as they launch it.
Portals are a great way to organize information, Melchione believes. One area that fits in with Navigator is training. Theres a training tab they can go to that provides them all the links for accreditation or certification as an agent, he says. Also, if they need marketing or product information, its right there at their fingertips.
Still to Come
New York Life expects to roll out its new agency portal this fall. Ron Zarrella, corporate vice president, agency I-net, says until now the carrier has provided CDs to its agents to load on their desktops. The CDs served their purpose well for a time but are going by the wayside with broadband access available to most agents. You can imagine the amount of money involved with supporting that type of environment, says Zarrella. Our field technology software was designed for use by one person at a single location. Looking across the landscape, many of our competitors were moving away aggressively from desktop applications to Web-based technology. We felt we must act to keep our competitive advantage.
New York Life developed a vision for the portal based on focus groups from inside and outside the corporate structure. We came up with prioritieswhats really important to the agents, says Zarrella. We want to give our producers a reason to visit the site, and we want to make it easy to use.
One way the carrier hopes to accomplish that feat is by reducing the number of passwords the agents will need. Weve incorporated an authentication system, says Zarrella. [Agents] log on the portal, and they have seamless access to the information and the applications they need to run their business.
Agents will have access to a Web-based content system and a Web-based illustration system. Zarrella believes the message system will relate to certain groups of agents and is the start of what he anticipates will be a more personal site for each agent. [The site] is not at the detail we like yet, he says. Over the next year, well be developing an enhanced agency portal site that will have personalization and customization. In developing Web sites, you dont do it and youre done. Its an ongoing task.
Coyne agrees with the need to improve communication between the outside partners and the carrier. Its a communication and a productivity tool, she says. If you dont have [an intranet], you are going to do phone calls and e-mail. Its so much better to have [the information] all in one place.
The Big One
Mutualnets sheer size is what makes it distinctive, according to Valerio. The site has grown to roughly a quarter-million pages plus 500 to 600 Domino databases that are accessed through the site. The business sides provide the content, she says. Its managed department by department. When looking at content proposals, she explains, the managers ask what the purpose of the content is and whether the new content will help productivity.
Hall meets with Webmasters from each department to train them in the standards established for Mutualnet. We have design requirements for the pages, a common search tool, those kinds of things, says Valerio. The IS department developed cascading style sheets that keep the sites content conformed in a consistent manner across all the departments, Hall adds.
The Mutualnet site has become incredibly popular. Usability studies show 94 percent of Northwestern Mutuals home- office employees check the site daily. The most popular pages are the phone listings. You can see not only a phone number, but where the person is located, where the person fits within the organization, and a picture, says Valerio.
Each of Northwestern Mutuals 4,600 employees and another 500 contractors are listed in the electronic phone book, Hall says. Northwestern Mutuals employment office, security department, and corporate services department provide automatic feeds to the directory twice a day. When someone comes to work in the morning, we have [his or her] information available in the afternoon, she says, noting the company no longer produces a paper listing.
Todays Intranet
Coyne sees Northwestern Mutual, Pru-dential, and New York Life as examples of where business is headed. They are focusing more on usability, she says. In the older days, the intranet was started to put online a human resource PDF file, such as the employee handbook. Now, companies are analyzing who their users are, what things the users need to be productive, and what tasks the users are performing. If you can expedite processes and improve communication by using the intranet, you can imagine all the productivity increasing. All these little cost savings can add up.
Root points to the elimination of paper shuffling as a positive aspect of the intranet. You can use a portal to handle a lot of the communication between the agents and the insurance company, he says. Carriers send a lot of product information and updates to the agents in the form of paper. Thats a big expense.
Northwestern Mutual prides itself on the content of Mutualnet. Anything you need to know about the company is in there, says Valerio. The list includes employment forms, phone listings, the lunch menu at the office cafeteria, weather reports, special events, department work charts, officer bios, and department-by-department information.
A couple of years ago, we automated our job opportunities and stopped posting them on paper on the bulletin boards, says Hall. Now, we get automatic reminders there are new job opportunities, employees can apply for the positions online, and they can find out who got the job.
The Good and Bad
Carriers need to focus attention on design, Coyne believes, just as they do with the corporate Web site. One of the worst things you find is stale or boring content, she says. Sometimes you see sites and wonder why they even bother having them because nobodys looking at them.
For internal use, there are several positive things that can be done. Coyne points to one intranet site that had a page on industry acronyms that allowed employees to do their own research without being embarrassed because they did not know what the acronyms CPCU or CPIW mean.
Another example involved a company building a new home office. Employees get nervous about this, says Coyne. The company posted pictures and information about the new building on the intranet. Instead of being a scary situation, people were excited about the move.
With a site as full of content as Mutualnet, Hall indicates it is imperative a good search tool be available. We started with an embedded search in the servers but early on realized it was not going to be that useful, she says. The company ended up using Verity Ultraseek as the search tool. This allowed us not only to search our Web pages on our Mutualnet servers, but also index things such as the Domino databases that might not be on a Web server. Weve worked hard to get people aware of meta data standards. Use good words [in your search], qualify your links, and tell us where were going to go so the pages will come up a lot better.
Make a Sale
For insurance carriers and agents, ex-changing information is wonderful, but the key for both sides is making a sale. The Prudential site can help agents with leads through a system called Market Soft, which distributes leads to the appropriate agent. If a potential customer comes on the Prudential Web site and expresses an interest in purchasing a policy, the lead is routed to the appropriate agent within an hour.
When the agent connects to the home page of the portal, [the lead] will be sitting there with a message: You have a new hot lead. As soon as [agents] click onto that message, they see the name, address, phone number, and what the prospect might be interested in, says Melchione. Not only does it get the key things in front of the agents we want them to be aware of, it makes it easier for the agent to find what [the prospect] wants. And it improves our response time to a prospect.
The sales tools expand from there. In addition to giving Prudential agents a clear picture of the clients needs, the system helps the agents carry the process through completion. It actually walks [the agents] through the types of tools they should use when they have a sales call, says Melchione. It goes right down to how to generate the electronic application, capturing a signature electronically, and submitting the application with the signature.
Valued Tool
The number of top-tier companies in all industries offering intranets is about 80 percent, Coyne estimates, finding it hard to believe some companies have chosen to ignore it as a tool. The intranet provides such a big opportunity to promote the culture, the mission, and the unity of the company, she says. It even can make people feel good about their group, their job, or their product.
Intranet Donts
Kara Coyne, director of research for the Nielsen Norman Group, offers intranet designers five simple things to avoid when designing their corporate site:
Inconsistent design.
Stale news or news that is centric to one group.
Poor search capabilities.
Multiple logins.
Troublesome or unnecessary features.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.