As the industry gears up for the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association event, we speak with Microsoft’s Tony Jacob to find out how mobile applications are transforming processes for insurance agents and their customers.

At a time when there are more mobile devices than humans on the planet, it’s unsurprising that most individuals prefer mobile as their number-one way to be reached and interact. It’s also helping them to be more productive at work, and it’s creating a more engaging and convenient way for companies to communicate with their customers. With this in mind, a growing number of insurance carriers are exploring how they can use both B2B and B2C mobile applications across their businesses – applications that are capable of running on multiple devices.

“Many people, particularly in the emerging markets, access websites from their mobile devices and expect to be able to choose, buy and amend insurance policies or interact with their insurance carriers in the same way,” explains Tony Jacob, managing director of Worldwide Insurance at Microsoft. “Providing mobile applications is also an effective way to attract the ­younger ­generation of potential policyholders, and to supply agents, brokers, claims adjusters and risk engineers with mobile applications and devices that can increase their productivity and allow them to provide an enhanced customers experience to their policyholders.”

While many insurance carriers recognize the benefits mobile applications bring to both their employees and customers, developing and maintaining applications that can be used on multiple operating systems and devices can be challenging. “Our customers and partners find it difficult, time consuming and expensive to develop and support multiple versions of their mobile applications. This requires that they maintain skills in several architectures and support excess infrastructure,” says Jacob.

When Microsoft launches Windows 10 this year, developing mobile insurance applications for various form factors will become easier and more cost effective. Designed to increase interoperability, Windows 10 consolidates the various versions of Microsoft’s operating system to provide a consistent user experience across all devices including mobiles, tablets, laptops, desktops and the new Surface Hub.

“Windows 10 users will be able to develop one application with a context-sensitive interface that will automatically render itself to fit the screen size and input model of whichever device the customer or insurance agent is using,” explains Jacob. “Customers will also be able to build both online and native Windows applications and quickly and easily reconfigure them to run on iOS or Android devices. Meanwhile, new on-ramp tools will enable developers to convert iOS and Android applications to Windows.”

In addition, developers will be able to integrate Microsoft Azure cloud services into their applications, or use that cloud platform to support, provision and deploy their applications. “Using the cloud as an application platform could be a real game-changer for insurance customers and partners because it will enable them to efficiently deliver applications to remote employees, such as independent or captive agents who are distributed widely across a market or region,” says Jacob.

Currently, Microsoft is working with several of its partners to develop a broad range of mobile applications, products and services that are designed to help insurance customers manage their daily insurance needs more conveniently and flexibly.

For example, Insuresoft has launched a new Diamond application to enable property and casualty insurance policyholders to make premium payments, check their policy status, show proof of coverage and print hard copies of their policies directly from Windows Phone or Windows 8.1 devices. Avanade, meanwhile, offers a range of mobile applications to help agents and customers manage life, non-life, and even usage-based insurance scenarios in a more convenient and flexible way.

“The new generation of more responsive mobile applications provides our insurance customers with the opportunity to improve the work style of their remote employees including agents, brokers, financial advisors, claims adjusters and risk engineers,” says Jacob. “Microsoft’s Developer Experience team aims to help our partners develop and deliver mobile applications quickly and in a way that helps them to build their skill sets in areas such as responsive web applications, touch interfaces and cloud as an application platform. We’re currently helping many of our partners to extend their traditional insurance solutions so that they can be used on mobile devices.”

Improving the accuracy and efficiency of claims processing is also high on Microsoft’s agenda. This year, the company has worked with StoneRiver to help it develop and launch a mobile claims adjuster application that enables adjusters to easily gather loss information, add related information and process claims more quickly. Similarly, Microsoft has helped Accenture Duck Creek to develop a Windows-based mobile claims adjuster application to help insurers access claims information and additional data while completing loss inspections in the field, using their Windows Phone and tablets such as the Surface device.

“We’re seeing a new wave of claims adjuster applications that either integrate with, or extend, insurance companies’ back-office claims processing solutions so agents can complete forms on their mobile devices, tablets, laptops or desktops,” says Jacob. “In future, we expect these applications to become better integrated with claims estimating applications and the calculators used in automotive and homeowner adjusting. Developers will also make better use of the peripheral features of Windows devices such as the camera and voice recorders.”

Several Microsoft partners have also developed mobile applications that will boost the productivity of insurance agents and brokers, or help these providers to improve the experience for policyholders and prospective customers.

For example, CSC has created a Windows mobile and touch application with RiskMaster, an integrated claims and risk management mobile application to help property and casualty insurance carriers and self-insured customers to evaluate claims, control legal costs, identify potential fraud and automate policy administration more quickly.
Meanwhile, US-based insurance agency management system provider Vertafore has launched initiatives to provide insurance agents with mobile applications that will help increase their productivity, regardless of the device they are using.

Other Microsoft partners have developed mobile ‘pitchbook’ applications to provide sales representatives with real-time access to model sales presentations and all of the product information they need to explain simple and complex insurance products to customers.

“Curated sales content applications are delivered directly from the cloud to a web or native application on the agent’s mobile device, so that sales content can be accessed easily regardless of the user’s location,” explains Jacob. “Microsoft has also worked with agency management system providers to integrate insurance companies’ customer relationship management (CRM) systems with individual agents’ mobile devices to provide them with additional customer insight and facilitate effective case management.”
For example, Seismic’s app, which is hosted on Microsoft Azure and can be integrated with an insurance company’s CRM system, allows sales agents to share sales documents and presentations, gain a 360-degree view of customers, automatically populate documents with data and more.

Similarly, LIA has developed a curated sales content application that can be used on Windows tablets. Used in 47 countries, LIA allows insurance sales representatives to access relevant content on their mobile devices when dealing with customers in the field. The application also analyses individual employees’ prospects and sales, and then feeds this data back to the management team so they can track performance.

“LIA provides an efficient and effective tool for insurance companies wanting to achieve compliance because management can also ensure version control and provide an audit trail for each sales representative and prospect engagement,” explains David Warren, CEO of LIA. “Plus, customers can now purchase our flagship Windows app using their existing Microsoft budget, enabling them to derive increased incremental value from their investments in Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Microsoft Azure.”

In addition, Microsoft is collaborating with e-application developers such as iPipeline to provide agents with the mobile tools they need to quickly complete insurance forms when they are closing new deals. The company has also partnered with both AssureSign and DocuSign to ensure that e-signature capabilities are included in its devices, its productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Looking ahead, Jacob expects more insurance providers to harness mobile technology to cater to the needs of their employees and customers. He also predicts that more insurance carriers will leverage the internet of things, telematics, usage-based applications and home automation devices.

“Smart devices are becoming increasingly popular as insurance carriers explore how they can capture insights about customer behavior to better price policies, improve underwriting performance or reduce claims loss ratios,” explains Jacob. “The explosion of wearable devices in the marketplace is also prompting companies to explore how data about the wearer’s health and fitness activities can be used to develop life, group and employee insurance programs and products. Over the next few years, insurance providers will need to ensure they can tailor their existing solutions or develop new applications and products to cater for today’s more mobile workforce and consumer base.”

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Powerful analytical data is becoming vital to retailers worldwide

We hear from AVA Retail’s Atul Hirpara about how sensors, depth-sensing cameras and more can provide the in-store analytics retailers need to transform the shopping experience.

Understanding customers and how to cater to their needs is key to retail success, particularly in an age where fewer people are visiting high-street stores.

“Online shopping sources have put a lot of competitive pressure on traditional retailers recently, so many are looking for ways to make the in-store experience more compelling,” says Atul Hirpara, executive at AVA Retail. “Today’s shoppers are incredibly web-savvy. Roughly half of Western consumers use smartphones to check prices while in store, so it’s more important than ever to engage with customers both online and in the physical world.”

To make the in-store experience more engaging for customers and more productive for store associates, many retailers are implementing analytics and other data-driven technologies.

“Most people wouldn’t dream of launching an e-commerce site without deploying web analytics to track sales, page views and popular items, and AVA provides the interactive technology that retailers need to access the same data in their physical stores,” comments Hirpara. “Our solutions enable retailers to encourage in-store sales by sending real-time coupons to customers’ smartphones via beacons or near field communications technology. We even offer interactive kiosks that allow shoppers to learn about products or video chat with a specialist.”

AVA’s various infrared and proprietary sensors provide retailers with powerful analytical data about the number of people visiting a store, the aisles they visited, the routes they took and even the individual products they looked at.

“For example, our technology can show a retailer that the highest footfall is recorded on Tuesday afternoons when it’s raining, or that people frequently avoid a particular department,” Hirpara explains. “This type of actionable intelligence, which can be viewed online via Microsoft Power BI, helps retailers become more efficient.”

AVA also offers interactive experiences for consumers that are built on internet of things technology, such as Smart Shelf. Built using sensors and AVA’s digital content management system, Smart Shelf provides consumers with a better contextual and just-in-time content delivery platform.

“A retailer could use Smart Shelf to create a video advertisement for a new perfume that starts playing whenever a customer enters the fragrance section of a store, then as they pick up a sample, instantly triggers a display showing relevant content,” says Hirpara.

AVA’s technology collects data about how often each product is picked up, how long consumers spend looking at it and its purchase history.

“This makes the shopping experience fun and engaging for customers, and provides retailers with valuable analytics data about consumer behavior,” enthuses Hirpara. “It sounds very complex, but with our software stack and Microsoft Azure, we’re able to quickly build and deploy immersive experiences for retailers worldwide.”

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“In the past, start-ups would spend a lot of time building their company’s IT infrastructures which left them little time to focus on developing the high-quality products, profitable business strategies and effective marketing campaigns they needed to enter the market successfully,” explains Richard Peers, director of the financial services industry at Microsoft. “Today, fintech accelerator programs enable entrepreneurs to experiment with different ideas and quickly develop breakthrough products that have the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry.”

Microsoft offers various accelerator initiatives, including seven global Microsoft Ventures programs and the BizSpark program, which gives start-ups access to its technology stack, partners and marketing engines.

Finlytics, which was established in 2006 as a joint venture with a tier-one investment bank, is one financial solutions provider that has benefited from Microsoft’s BizSpark Plus program.

The company joined BizSpark to help it save operational and development costs by offering its business intelligence solutions via the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, rather than on its clients’ on-premises servers. BizSpark’s team provided free access to Microsoft’s software development tools, servers and Azure cloud platform, as well as provided expert guidance.

“Microsoft reviewed our architecture and initial business strategies, and gave us the planning advice and software resources we needed to successfully transition from our old model in a shorter period of time,” explains Nick Simpson, the founder of finlytics. “We have eliminated our monthly development costs and can now deliver the same reporting and business intelligence applications via a more cost-effective and scalable model on Azure.”

Working in collaboration with BizSpark and its Microsoft partner Level 39, a fintech accelerator based in the UK’s Canary Wharf, enabled finlytics to interact with major banks, insurers and other financial services institutions.

“Even if a start-up had an unlimited supply of money, it would still benefit from being a member of the BizSpark program,” concludes Simpson. “Deploying cloud solutions in the financial services sector can be challenging due to the strict regulations, but the Microsoft Ventures and BizSpark accelerator programs are really helping startups to navigate these compliance issues, build viable business plans and bring their solutions to market quickly.”

Originally published in OnWindows: Issue 1, Winter 2014.

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Guiding your way around large and crowded indoor venues, such as shopping malls, sports stadiums, museums, convention centers and hospitals, can be difficult. Signage is often ineffective and the global positioning technologies built into mobiles cannot be used indoors because they require a clear satellite signal to work effectively. Today, many companies are realizing the benefits of deploying indoor location-based services (ILBS) solutions that not only help people navigate venues easily, but also provide them with contextual information to enhance the visitor experience.

“Indoor spaces are becoming much larger so there is new demand for ILBS tools that use Wi-Fi networks or Bluetooth beacons to pinpoint the exact location of individuals and use contextual information to guide them around indoor venues,” says Kyle Rhee, manager at South Korea’s leading wireless telecommunications operator SKTelecom.

Recognizing the demand for such service in South Korea, SK Telecom introduced its own Bluetooth 4.0 beacon-based ILBS solution in 2013. Named Wizturn, the B2B ILBS solution is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and uses Bluetooth to automatically detect the exact location of consumers and deliver relevant, real-time information to their mobile devices.

To date, Wizturn has been integrated with geo-fencing and zone-based check-in services and implemented in various indoor venues across South Korea. “For example, convention centers have implemented Wizturn to enable visitors to use a mobile app to access information about each booth and plan their schedule before they even enter the building,” explains Rhee. “Exhibitors have also harnessed the solution to send targeted promotional offers directly to visitors’ mobiles to help boost foot traffic and enhance customer engagement. Plus, the technology has been used at sports arenas to notify fans about discounted merchandise or food offers, or to encourage them to enter fan competitions.”

In addition, Wizturn has been integrated with various back-office solutions on the Azure platform – such as business intelligence or customer relationship management tools – to enable companies to capture and analyze data about their customers’ behavior.

“Using these analytics tools to better understand the data captured via our beacons helps companies to develop targeted marketing campaigns, improve operational processes and boost customer engagement,” says Rhee. “For instance, retailers can use analytics tools to track peak visitor times to plan staffing rotas, identify popular products, and determine where to place promotional products or even to send personalized offers to consumers as soon as they step into the shopping mall.”

Now Wizturn is well established in South Korea, SK Telecom plans to extend its services across the globe with the help of Microsoft and its partners in 2015. Rhee believes one of the key factors that will help to achieve international growth is the fact that Wizturn is available as a software-as-a-service solution on Azure.

“As the first solution to integrate ILBS technology with a globally available public cloud platform, Wizturn can easily be deployed anywhere in the world without customers needing to invest in their own on-premises infrastructures,” he explains. “Plus, our StorSimple solution allows customers to store the vast amounts of data gathered in on-premise resources and on Azure, providing them with a secure and flexible way to access information whenever they need it.”

SK Telecom also aims to leverage Microsoft’s extensive network of system integrators, independent service vendors, software developers and other partners to expand its services into new markets.

“We already have a solid partner base in South Korea, but this year we intend to join forces with Microsoft partners in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere in the world,” explains Rhee. “We also plan to establish a co-marketing campaign with Microsoft and train its partners to deliver our ILBS solution themselves. Eventually, we hope that WizTurn will gain the necessary certification to be offered as part of the Microsoft technology stack.”

To help elevate its position in the global ILBS market, SK Telecom also plans to increase the accuracy of its geo-positioning technology to identify the location of individuals within a distance of 50cm. “We will also add asset tracking functionality to Wizturn to enable our customers to tag equipment with Bluetooth beacons and track these items in real time, helping to improve operational efficiency or security,” says Rhee. “For example, police forces could use it to track rifles, or it could be used by factory workers to track shipments and inventory stock.”

As the global ILBS market continues to grow, Rhee is confident that by extending its partnership with Microsoft and adding and upgrading the features to Wizturn, SK Telecom will be able to quickly gain customers in new markets. “Our experience as a wireless telco operator allows us to provide some of the most accurate positioning technology in the market, while our advanced beacon technology, routing engines, map-authoring tools, geo-fencing, check-in, analytics solutions provide everything a company needs to offer customers a reliable context-driven ILBS service,” he concludes. “2015 marks the start of our global expansion and we look forward to building a win-win partnership in the growing indoor location space business with many capable partners.”

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We discuss how integrated software solutions can help pharmaceutical companies to streamline processes, reduce costs and produce safer medicines with AX for Pharma’s Andrea Ruosi

Producing high quality medicines that are safe for human consumption is no easy feat. Pharmaceutical companies must deploy an enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool to manage their inventory; implement a laboratory information management system (LIMS) to automate laboratory workflows and store and manage data; and must also control production with a manufacturing execution system (MES).

According to Andrea Ruosi, CEO of AX for Pharma, these systems should be fully integrated to avoid potentially serious mistakes and excessive costs, while ensuring compliance with industry regulations. “Many pharmaceutical companies manually weigh ingredients and enter data into separate MES, LIMS and ERP systems, which can lead to human errors that have costly repercussions during the production stage, render the medicine non-compliant or even cause risk to patients.”

To streamline processes, reduce human error and develop safer medicines that are produced in a more compliant way, many pharmaceuticals have replaced multiple customised solutions with fully integrated commercial-off-the-shelf-solutions (COTS).

“Rather than being built specifically for one company, COTS solutions are designed for general use, which means they are more reliable and require less testing,” explains Ruosi. “Plus, using a single Microsoft technology-based solution, rather than multiple software solutions from different vendors, accelerates implementation and reduces total costs.”

Built on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform, AX for Pharma is a COTS tool that provides small to large companies with a complete integrated ERP, LIMS and MES (dispensing) system, and can help enterprises to manage specific processes like clinical supplies.“If a large pharmaceutical acquires another organisation or buys a new drug, it can be expensive and complicated to extend or replace their existing systems to cover the new operations,” explains Ruosi. “We can integrate our solution with the company’s overall financial ERP to enable them to cover LIMS, or dispensing, or production and inventory management with handheld devices in a compliant and cost-effective way.”

Multiple pharmaceuticals worldwide have implemented AX for Pharma. For example, one global organisation uses the solution to support supply chain, inventory, quality management, production and distribution operations across eight plants and multiple companies. Elsewhere, a pharmaceutical manufacturer deployed the tool to achieve regulatory compliance in plants in the US, Italy and France.

“Customers like AX for Pharma because it offers an intuitive interface, integrates with their existing Microsoft technology, and provides a clear overview of the entire operational process and supply chain,” explains Ruosi. “Soon, we will release a preconfigured pharmaceutical tool based on AX for Pharma, which will run in the Microsoft Azure cloud and accelerate the implementation and validation processes.”

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