Tag Archives: trends

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There’s An App for That

Mobile devices and the apps people use with them are changing how consumers interact with information. The programming and development trend of creating small apps that accomplish a specific function will also change how business programs are developed.

phone-apps

Why aren’t our agency systems more like Facebook?

Facebook is easy to use, and it’s a robust tool. Grandparents can browse pictures of their grandchildren in a matter of minutes, while teenagers manage their entire social lives from the site. Furthermore, Facebook is free. So why isn’t agency software more like Facebook?

The insurance industry is not known for fast innovation. Yet all of us are competing in an environment where apps developed for the consumer and small business market are innovating at a breakneck pace. As a result, we’re seeing more and more of those consumer tools finding their way into the workplace.

In the not-too-distant future, agencies will be able to purchase only the apps that they want for their organizations. These apps will accomplish a single purpose and will communicate with one another. There will be an app for customer information, one for policy detail, one for claims administration, one for mobile access for both producers and clients, and who knows what else. The list of apps will only be limited by the imagination of users and developers.

Instead of having to purchase one monolithic expensive program that does everything for everyone, agencies will be able to build their own customized products that do exactly (and only) what they need.

Here are some lessons that agency system vendors need to learn from the vibrant and innovative consumer Web apps market.

  • Foster innovation through third parties. Open up your systems. Innovation won’t come solely from within a single company. By having open and documented Application Program Interfaces (APIs), a vendor encourages third parties to build upon and enhance their products. Salesforce.com is a great example of fostering innovation by opening a core program to outside developers.
  • Release early; iterate often. The release cycles of traditional vendor software are way too drawn out, which means the software isn’t as nimble or able to respond to new techniques and technology as it should be. If you are not slightly embarrassed when it is released you have waited too long.
  • Ease of use matters. Some agency software systems could be described as, well, a bit clunky, usually requiring extensive training to use. On the other hand, apps in the consumer space tend to be very well designed, with a great deal of care paid to making them easy to use.
  • Use social features to encourage adoption. Users can be resistant to fitting new tools or features into their workflow. By taking cues from the social features found in apps like Facebook, developers can encourage users to embrace new applications.

Part of the problem also lies with how agencies tend to adopt new tools. The ease with which information can be shared on a site like Facebook can run counter to many organizations’ internal cultures. The mindset of an agency (and the rest of the industry) must change from being rigidly hierarchical and siloed towards being more open, flat, and transparent. Companies now have the ability to change the way their employees work.

What can you do? Begin to understand apps by personally using an iPhone or Android-based smartphone, or use a tablet like an iPad or Galaxy Tab. Unfortunately, a BlackBerry doesn’t count, as its apps are so universally poor. As you start using apps, you will begin to understand the transformation taking place.

Today, companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have transformed the way people communicate and collaborate, globally. In five years (or less?), how agencies communicate and collaborate with everyone will also be transformed because “there will be an app for that.”

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Understanding the Post-Recession Consumer

Understanding consumer behavior is a key to making sure your agency will continue to prosper.

In this TED talk by John Gerzema, co-author of the book The Brand Bubble, he says there’s an upside to the recent financial crisis — the opportunity for positive change. Speaking at TEDxKC, he identifies four major cultural shifts driving new consumer behavior and shows how businesses are evolving to connect with thoughtful spending.

How is your agency changing to meet the needs of your clients as these cultural shifts take place?

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Data Wants to Be Free

A recent article in National Underwriter listed the top 10 technology trends for insurance companies. One of the trends was “Web Services and SOA Tools.” Here is how this trend was described:

“P/C insurers operate a large ecosystem of systems and applications that integrate for seamless processing. In the past, companies had to hard-code integration between systems, which was costly, time-consuming, created challenges when applications were replaced and integration had to be redone, and was often difficult to overhaul due to technology incompatibility. The use of Web services/service-oriented architecture (SOA) enables companies to deploy services instead of using one-to-one integration. These technologies will help insurers improve their straight-through processing (STP) capabilities and reduce integration costs.”

While the article was specifically addressing insurance companies and their internal operations, it also applies to the agents selling those companies’ products.

Agencies have struggled with creating “seamless processing” between the agency information contained in an agency management system, carrier internal processing systems, and other third-party applications an agency might elect to use to streamline their operations.

The days of information being trapped within the agency management system need to disappear. Vendors should not be the gatekeepers of that data and hold agencies hostage. They can no longer limit or control how, and under what circumstances, an agency has access to their client and prospect information. Client and prospect data want to be free of the artificial borders and boundaries that still exist.

Web services and SOA are two examples of technologies that are already in place that make it much easier to allow different systems to communicate and share data. Web services are simply a standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone.

Other industries are rapidly implementing Web services and open architectures to extend their reach and allow third-party developers to extend the core platform. Examples in other industries include:

  • Salesforce.com: This company has grown over the last 10 years to become a standard for selling cloud computing and software. Part of this growth is a result of the AppExchange, a marketplace for third-party developers who have created over 1,000 applications and services that extend the utility of the Salesforce CRM and the Salesforce.com platform.
  • Apple iPhone: There are now over 100,000 applications that iPhone users can download and use on the iPhone platform. As you may have heard, Apple tightly controls the types of applications it allows in its store. Yet, these third-party apps have made the iPhone one of the top mobile devices.
  • Infusionsoft: This is the marketing platform I currently use to manage all of my marketing activities. It comes with an extensive application programming interface that allows anyone with some programming skills to move information into and out of the cloud database. This provides me with great flexibility to customize their platform to meet my specific needs.

The above examples are just a few. These industries understand that you can’t control and keep clients simply by holding their data hostage. If you have created a good platform that performs well, then you only add more value for existing clients by opening access to that platform.

Agency system vendors and insurance companies need to stop talking about open access and, instead, take concrete steps to open access to data for the agents they serve.

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Diving into Internet Marketing

The cover story in the December 2009 issue of American Agent & Broker is an article by me where I describe the different ways the Internet can be the best marketing tool an insurance agent can have at their disposal.

Consumers’ buying and shopping habits have changed. Think about what you do when you’re thinking of buying a new product or service. For most people, the research process starts by going to the Internet and searching for that product or service.

To read the entire article simply to to the American Agent & Broker web site by clicking the link below.

http://www.agentandbroker.com/Issues/2009/December-2009/Pages/Diving-into-Internet-marketing.aspx

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Google Mistrials

In a case of modern technology meets the traditional courtroom, a small but increasing number of jury trials are being declared mistrials as a result of jurors doing research on Google and using their mobile phones to send text messages and to Twitter.

An article by John Schwartz in the New York Times published March 17, 2009, details some of the problems arising because of jurors’ use of modern technology. In one example, the judge in a federal drug trial in Florida was forced to declare a mistrial because nine of the 12 jurors admitted they had done research about the case on the Internet.

This trend is not going away. People are becoming more comfortable with posting comments about their daily activities on Facebook, a blog, or in a Twitter post. This is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to control. Just another little example of how transparency is affecting all areas of life.