Agency principals should consider the appointment of a chief information person (CIP) for the agency who sees the whole picture of the agency operation, understands technology and the importance of standardized business processes and workflows, and has some decision-making authority. An alternative would be to appoint an “operations enhancement team.”

The critical point is that the functions of the CIP or equivalent be undertaken. The CIP, in many cases, would need to retain the services of a tech consultant to assist in heavily technical implementations and problems, in cases where the technical help from the vendor, carrier or hardware supplier was insufficient.

The responsibilities of the CIP function should be to look at the workflow processes across all departments of the agency, and design strategies to make those workflows more efficient and effective for the agency. In other words, the agency should embrace new technology solutions to solve specifically identified business problems, or to seize opportunities to move to the next level of operating effectiveness.

Agency employees should be rewarded for using tech innovatively, and they should be encouraged to share their insights. This is a great way to give employees with good computer skills an immediate opportunity to earn incentives. The agency in turn gets a number of good ideas as to how it can use technology more creatively and effectively.

Implementation of new technology is hard, and agency principals need to make sure their employees apply the requisite effort to implement it. It is common for agencies to make the investment in a major automation system, but then to under-utilize it because of a lack of commitment and training on the part of agency employees.

Agency principals or CIPs should specifically focus on employee tech training, both on basic computer applications as well as on the specifics of the agency management system. They should also make the use of newly acquired technology mandatory for all agency employees.

The agency should establish a process to standardize practices and procedures so that all members of the staff document client files accurately and completely. Technology drives the need for standardization. Agency principals have a great opportunity to use the agencys new technology to market a positive, modern image to its customers.

Agency principals or CIPs also should make sure that the agency adopts tech standards, so that the agency does not have a proliferation of different types of equipment and configurations that are expensive and complex to maintain. This easily can occur if different generations of PCs and operating systems are used simultaneously, each having different levels of functionality.

Agency principals and CIPs must define what will constitute success in terms of their technology implementation. They must clearly define the parameters of each tech project, such as:

What is the specific business objective to be achieved?

How will the new technology improve agency workflow or business processes, and how will processes/workflows be impacted in the future as a result?

What is the budget for the project?

Who is responsible for the implementation?

Who are the appropriate people in the agency to participate in the project? (Individuals representing each of the agency departments affected, and who actually perform the work should be included.)

Is the technology being acquired a proven solution based on references received from similarly situated agencies?

What will be the initial and ongoing training needs to get effective use from the technology?

When will the project be completed?

What are the ongoing costs and requirements to maintain the technology?

It is then critical for the agency principal or CIP to monitor the progress of the project, and to hold those responsible for it accountable for results.

Agencies also have been successful in retaining the services of a technology consultant on an ongoing basis to provide the technology oversight and project management otherwise performed by the agency principal or CIP.

Finally, just as the agency adopts a culture of embracing technology, it should reward those of its companies that do likewise and provide good technology support to the agency.

Moreover, it is important for agency principals and their employees to give companies their very candid feedback on proposed and existing company technologies so that solutions are not pursued that are inefficient for the agent.

Companies frequently say their agents have not given them clear direction on which technology solutions to pursue, resulting in costly missteps for the company and poor utilization by agents.

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The Independent Insurance Agents of Americas Agents Council for Technology is dedicated to encouraging and facilitating the effective use of technology in the independent agency system. A major way we do this is to put focus on issues that need to be addressed by the industry. The companies and vendors that participate in ACT are very interested in learning more about the perspectives of their customers–the independent agents–on these issues.

We have had an excellent opportunity in recent months to obtain these agent perspectives, as ACT has conducted technology seminars for several state agent associations and industry groups around the country. As usual, the customer has had some great input for usinput that will be seriously discussed in future ACT sessions and in this column.

This is the first in a series of columns by ACT participants. In the next column, on May 20, we examine the impact of the Web on agency operations.

Jeff Yates is executive director of the IIAAs Agents Council for Technology in Alexandria, Va., a group of agents, companies, vendors, and associations working together to promote and facilitate the use of effective technology solutions and business processes within the independent agency system. He can be reached at [email protected].

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, April 22, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.