For Robert Schacher, president of Continental Special Risks in Roswell, Ga., the most valuable purchase has been an imaging system from Conyers, Ga.-based ImageRight, a part of Skywire.

“The product is really geared for our kind of operation,” said Mr. Schacher. “It lets you track your total workflows–when it comes in, who has it, etc. It has also helped us in accounting, because it can track transactions on the fly and fax or e-mail them elsewhere, if necessary.”

Among the benefits of the software, which has been in place at Continental Special Risks for about three years, is the fact that “nothing is lost” when files are imaged and stored electronically, he stated. “You can pull up a file and read everything that ever happened to it. If a company needs it, you just push a button and send it instantly. Multiple people can pull up an account and look at it at the same time, and discuss it from any location.”

He recalled that “when we first put it in, I thought half of my people would quit. It was new and hard to use, and we had to scan everything in. You also have to get someone to do training and get everything scanned and into folders in the right places.”

Now that the system is up and running, however, employees are enjoying the benefits, he added. “You don't have to leave your desk to get a file, and that improves productivity.”

According to Mr. Schacher, the ImageRight system links to the agency's AIM agency management package. “If you're typing an endorsement in the agency management package, it links back and forth, so you can answer questions immediately without going to look for documents,” he explained.

He further expects that retailers will soon be able to dial into his system and “pull up all their policies right there. We're trying to convince them they don't need us sending them policies anymore.”

In terms of bottom-line savings from the system, he noted, “I have noticed that we've had 20 percent growth over last three years without adding any clerical staff. We completely got rid of the file room and moved people in there. The system also does archiving to a special server on our premises, which we can still access with the touch of a button.”

While the system is the result of a “$150,000 investment in software, plus $100,000 in hardware,” Mr. Schacher said, “we've gotten our investment back.”

Mr. Schacher said the firm is looking for additional benefits from its imaging system. “We add new functions and features all the time and set up new workflows,” he noted. “ImageRight does it for us, and we can modify it internally.”

o Server Upgrades:

According to Nicholas Hill, chief technology officer for Burns & Wilcox in Farmington Hills, Mich., “for a variety of reasons, blade center technology and blade servers have been an important acquisition.”

A blade server consists of many thin, electronic circuit boards (blades)–each of which has server capabilities. Blade servers provide increased processing power in less space, and also reduce power consumption.

As a result of installing this technology, he said, “we have been able to consolidate more in the data center. We've become leaner and meaner, taking up less space.”

“We've had the technology for about seven months,” he noted. “It has added computing power and physical space in a smaller footprint–and the extra space gives us room to grow.”

He said the server upgrade also allows agents to have better access to tools that let them do work away from the office. This is accomplished using Citrix–a presentation service that allows enterprises to run multiple applications in many locations.

In addition to improved workforce mobility, Citrix has also enabled the firm to provide a “consistent application environment for all our multiple branches,” he said. “It makes it easier to introduce and test new applications across the enterprise.”

Mr. Hill also reported that Burns & Wilcox is “moving more toward being paperless with ImageRight. We've been doing that for eight or nine months. We've got a large part of our population using electronic imaging and storage–moving documentation around based on a rationalized workflow.”

Thanks to the workflow upgrades, the agency has seen “significant improvement in terms of efficiency in the operation,” he said. “It allows people to understand and know what work needs to be done, where and by whom–it's all automated. You're minimizing the amount of manual movement of paper, taking the human element out of it in terms of making errors.”

Looking forward, Mr. Hill said B&W is considering more business process management-type technology.

The firm is also concerned with “ensuring a secure environment for folks to transact business. A layered sense of security is the best practice out there now. You have to consistently stay on top of it. Hackers are relentless in trying to find a way into your enterprise and your business information. We are cognizant of that.”

o Keeping IT In-House:

At TAPCO Underwriters, based in Burlington, N.C., “our best technology buy was to invest in our own IT department,” said Tap Johnson III, president and owner.

“We are not an advocate of packaged products,” he noted, especially after an experience in 1987, when the firm bought a software platform only to have the software maker close its doors shortly afterward.

That sealed the decision to bring technology development in-house, said Mr. Johnson. As a result, he added, “we can integrate outside products with what we have now. We can quote and bind coverage in five minutes, while our competitors may take five days.”

TAPCO's IT staff includes 10 full-time programmers and six network tech-support personnel within a company of 180 employees, he noted.

Increased efficiency for a better bottom line was the goal of the in-house effort, he explained. “A human works 140,000 minutes a year. If you add a minute to every transaction at 140,000 transactions, you have also added an employee,” he said. “If you take a minute away, you need one less employee.”

“We look at the entire process for opportunities to automate, and quicker is always better. Duplicate entry is the kiss of death,” he added, noting that accounting, issuance and renewal activities may force an agency to retype the same data three times.

Efficiency has translated into more business for TAPCO, and Mr. Johnson attributes part of that success to focusing on customers. “We try to take every touch-point and get into the customer psyche, and make the experience the way the customer would like it to be,” he explained. “We answer the phone in 30 seconds and process about 7,000 calls a day. Web sites often leave people with questions, so it is easier to talk with a human being.”

“We let customers interface with us any way they want–we find out what they want,” he continued. “We have it all programmed in our database, and we tell the customer all the choices. There is no variation between CSRs. We automate the sending of documents as well. Being on the phone, if they want to change it, we just send a new e-mail.”

Mr. Johnson added that agents have access to the company's Web portal, “so they can go in and change their criteria. We give them choices but try to steer them toward the electronic choice. It's cheaper.”

The company has also invested in hardware to enable printing, folding and inserting operations for mailing and other purposes, he said. “This is done automatically. The system puts things in envelopes and decides where to mail them.”

TAPCO also direct-bills, “and by having a proprietary system, we can run it through without touching it to re-price you,” Mr. Johnson noted. “We can even send automatic price updates.”

He added that the company is beginning to encourage agents to take policies as PDFs, rather than paper. “Now we send snail-mail and e-mail. We hope they will opt not to get paper in the future,” he said.