New software supports optimized creation and distribution
by Dr. Herbert Liebl (Managing Director Qualysoft Austria)

On the 8th and 9th of September 2010 the 15th Handelsblatt Annual Conference - IT for insurance companies – will take place. The venue is the Intercontinental Hotel in Cologne. The main topics which will be highlighted during the conference include effective IT support for new business models and the optimization of processes and intelligent sales models.

In this environment INFINICA will show its software suite offering solutions for the automated and personalized document creation and distribution process. This subject area plays an important role in the insurance sector.

Document Composition

The digital creation (Document Composition) and distribution of documents (Document Distribution, as well called Output Management) is despite undoubted importance so far only a small segment within the ECM market. Solutions in this area are barely in the mindsets of most responsible managers of companies, despite a huge potential for cost savings and quality improvement. The reason is probably that because of the supposed banality of office operations from the "pure paper era", no feeling for electronic / digital documents has developed yet. Thereby “ Document Composition and Output Management” solutions offer tremendous untapped optimization opportunities within the document circulation process and the corresponding business processes. The associated advantages should not be ignored by companies, especially because of the enormous challenges in the current economic situation.

Flexible design of electronic contracts, policies and notices

Insurance companies offer their customers a variety of products. Any combination of insurance products with the customer independent parameters has an impact on the individual offer and thus on the text blocks in the contracts. To be able to support the necessary functions and the appropriate business model, companies will require a flexible solution for document creation.
The number of documents in an insurance company is difficult to grasp. Some examples are insurance policies (automobile, life, homes ...), forms for notification of claim, cancellation forms, warning letters, application forms, advice notes and feedback forms.

With the help of the " INFINICA Document Suite" any kind of documents or interactive forms with arbitrary complexity are processed and created. This Software Suite will be presented by INFINICA as an exhibitor at the Handelsblatt insurance conference in Cologne. The " INFINICA Document Suite" consists of modular components that can be embedded into the existing business software environment in a few steps:

First of all the INFINICA Document Designer, which is the central tool for creating and designing document templates and secondly the INFINICA Server functioning as central storage (repository) for all documents and document processing center (execution of processes). Through this centralized management of document parts and templates the compliance with the corporate design specifications are warranted in a very efficient way. The third component, the INFINICA Workplace is the right tool for the management, the configuration and the monitoring of processes.

Basis for new solutions

The ability to generate and hand over the necessary documents immediately in contact with customers is a major competitive advantage for insurance brokers and advisors as they can easily and ad hoc meet important obligations.

The law requires insurance brokers and consultants to minute the content of a counseling session concerning insurance benefits and contract details and to adequately document these informations to insurance companies and customers.

If the entire process is handled electronically, it offers enormous efficiency gains and cost savings and also simplifies compliance with many different rules that are applied for the insurance industry.

The suite offers a good basis for new solutions that allow responsible persons (e.g. person in charge for car insurances) to create and to produce documents efficiently and with minimal effort, as well as to provide then the relevant, personalized information in a very fast manner through various channels of communication.
Thereby not only document related costs are reduced significantly. In the cost aspect as well incorporated are the simplification of business processes, the quick modification ability and launch of insurance products.

Awards

The "INFINICA Document Suite" has received an award. The consulting firm PENTADOC and the IT magazine Computer World awarded INFINICA with the ECM Award 2010 in the category of "economic efficiency". The prize was handed over on the 11th of May during the ECM Days 2010 at Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna.

This is the first time that the promising subject of "Document Composition" was put into the spotlight. It is still a largely unknown area for potential savings and improvement in business and a niche in comparison to the traditional archive-oriented ECM / DMS disciplines.

The INFINICA customer UPC Austria has realized huge cost savings with the use of the techniques of "Document Composition". Austria's largest alternative multimedia operator converted and automated its document production and the associated business processes consistently. The efficiency and effectiveness of the processes as well as the quality of document production have been improved dramatically by the intelligent and flexible automation.

The author

Herbert Liebl, born in 1968, is General Manager of Qualysoft Austria and Romania.

Mr. Liebl started his professional carreer at MicroStrategy Inc. in the USA. After returning to Europe he was Head of the Custom Application group and European Practice Manager. In 2001 he became Head of Technology at GFT in Austria and Hungary. In 2006 Mr. Liebl joined Qualysoft where he is managing director of Qualysoft Austria and Romania.

Mr. Liebl graduated with an M.Sc. degree in Physics from Tufts University, USA. Subsequently he received his Ph.D. in theoretical Physics at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria.