IT Answers the Call

Faced with an aggressive business growth strategy, The Guardian's IT is ready for the challenge.

Buy vs. Build

As with offshore outsourcing, Guardian is careful to evaluate all potential IT partners. Currently, about 25 percent of Guardian's IT is bought from external vendors. ""We would rather buy technology and then focus on integrating it with our systems,"" Callahan says. ""We are looking for the quickest, most efficient and cost-effective alternative.""

Evaluating technology is done with a set RFP process that involves a project management team-consisting of a project manager, programmers, business analysts, business-unit representatives and possibly the CTO, depending on the project.

While the technology and architecture is supporting Guardian's 10-year growth strategy, more specifically it is helping the insurer grow its business with better service and a better focus on the specific customer. ""In producer service, we are equipping the field force with better sales tools that provide a unified customer view,"" Callahan says. ""We are giving the producers and the customer service representatives a holistic and real-time view. We are providing clients access over the Internet.""

Guardian Online is the company's producer platform that provides access to customer information. ""Servicing the customer is vital to our business,"" Callahan says. ""Historically, IT has focused on back-office systems and record keeping."" However, the close partnership with the business side now has IT focusing on customer service, he adds. Technology partners that are helping Guardian with its customer service goals include Informatica (Redwood City, CA), an enterprise data analytics provider, Vitria (Sunnyvale, CA), a systems integration technology provider, and Sybase (Dublin, CA), which is providing wireless technology.

Guardian's wireless initiative, powered by Sybase's iAnywhere application, aims to provide producers with anytime and anywhere access to information such as real-time sales leads. ""Some people are ready for...wireless access,"" Callahan says. ""But others are not. Some are high tech and some are high touch. As a company, we can't dictate our customer's comfort level with technology,"" but the company has to be prepared for the people who are high tech.

The Guardian's initial wireless application will focus on the producer, Appelbaum says. ""We'll soon be launching the first release, the Client Manager,"" she says. ""When certain events take place, agents will be notified with wireless messages. Currently, Guardian is making Client Manager available on devices with the Palm (Santa Clara, CA) operating system, Compaq's (Houston) iPaq, and Research In Motion's (Waterloo, ON) Blackberry.

However, Guardian does not plan to commit to any one operating system or wireless platform. ""Our philosophy is we are device neutral,"" Appelbaum says. ""We have to be able to render the services to any device. We are not in the wireless device distribution business, we are in the information delivery business."" And, as the industry knows, information—not policies or products—makes the insurance world go round.

---------------------------------------

ROI-Generators

COMPANY NAME: The Guardian Life Insurance Co., New York, $32 billion in assets.

LINES OF BUSINESS: Personal: Annuities, life, disability and long-term care insurance, trust services, IRAs, mutual funds. Business: 401(k)s, retirement planning, dental, business protections, disability, life, executive compensation, medical, worksite and vision insurance.

KEY EXECUTIVES: Dennis Callahan, SVP and CIO; Phil Felice, VP and CTO; Robin Appelbaum, AVP, IT business planning, communications and development.

KEY INITIATIVES: Development of an enterprise-wide component architecture; consolidation of customer information across business units for better customer service; Guardian Online, the company's Web initiative; Client Manager, an agent wireless alert system.

IT ARCHITECTURE: Dell (Austin, TX) desktops; EMC (Hopkinton, MA) storage; Primavera (Bala Cynwyd, PA) project management; Cisco (San Jose, CA), Oracle (Redwood Shores, CA), and IBM (Armonk, NY) infrastructure, Net G (Naperville, Il) online training; Sybase (Dublin, CA) wireless; Covansys (Bangalore, India) and Patni Computer Systems (Mumbai) outsourcing. Other partners include Greenwich Technology Partners (White Plains, NY), Computer Associates (Islandia, NY), Informatica (Redwood City, CA), Vitria (Sunnyvale, CA), Microsoft (Redmond, WA), Siemens (Munich).

I&T: WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST BUSINESS CHALLENGE?

DENNIS CALLAHAN: The Guardian is in the second year of an aggressive 10-year growth initiative. Clearly, technology is part of that and the technology has to be ready.

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio

2 of 2