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Senior Vice President
ACE Multinational Client Group

Weaving a Complete View of Your World

Worldview gives risk managers a new appreciation for their risks with a Web-based system offering instant access to their multinational insurance programs.

Naturally, having a central online tool that gives risk managers easy access to key data on every insurance program out there is a risk professional's dream. It's not too far-fetched then to call Wilmington, Del.-based Tim Benson and his team, within the ACE multinational client group, dream weavers.

With Benson, senior vice president of ACE's multinational client group, in the lead role, ACE created Worldview. It is a web-based application that gives risk managers and their brokers the ability to see daily program updates, obtain copies of local policies and certificates, and access the ACE Insurance Directory, the proprietary country risk and regulatory information resource tool that ACE underwriters and legal staff use daily.

Other Worldview features include access to program contacts, multinational standards, claims bulletins, and Global Risk Advantage®, ACE's loss-information system.

"Worldview is unique because it gives risk managers and their brokers complete access to information on their multinational insurance programs," Benson said. Typically, he said, multinational insurance carriers can only provide loss-information data through online systems. Other information is filtered and not available in a timely fashion. Through Worldview, risk managers get immediate access to policy documentation that might take weeks or even months for other insurers to assemble, if at all, Benson said.

"Worldview completes the package for supporting ACE clients in managing their global risk programs with a level of confidence that has not been possible previously," Benson said, adding that managing multinational insurance programs is a huge challenge for even the most sophisticated risk managers in the most successful, competent corporations.

"There are already challenges around language, culture, time zones, systems, etc. Insurance-related concerns--including compliance issues and the value and role of insurance in each country--add to the complexity," he said.

Benson won't get any argument from Laurie Solomon, director, risk management, for the Coca-Cola Co.

"I would say Worldview is innovative from the standpoint that I don't see it anywhere else," Solomon said. "It's not magical, but the ease of use and simplicity, and the time ACE took to compile it all in a front-end, user-friendly database, is excellent." Solomon said that a product like Worldview was ideal for Coca Cola, with its massive global footprint and numerous international insurance programs.

"The ability to see what is happening on the local level is terrific," Solomon said. "It makes life much easier for us, and that really is what innovation is all about. The output may not be rocket science, but it was not accessible before Worldview."

Scott Borup, director of corporate risk management for Johnson & Johnson, said that with J&J's three main business entities--pharmaceuticals/biological sciences, medical devices and consumer healthcare--the risk management landscape can get very complex. For example, J&J conducts clinical trials around the world, a risk management landmine if not done properly.

"You can imagine keeping your arms around everything is a daunting task, and something like Worldview is a great innovation and help," Borup said. "We have hundreds of operating companies worldwide, and ACE issues close to 200 policies for us. We are a very compliance- focused company, so we need to have every piece of information at our fingertips. Having a clinical trial delayed is not an option for us."

Borup said that Worldview has been a great step forward for the J&J risk management process, as the tool allows J&J to accomplish and track all sorts of activities, including the issuance of policies, certificates of insurance, and claims.

"It very unlike the past, where we had a file room full of shelves of huge binders," he said. "Now we have live, real-time access to the critical data. Worldview may not be transformational in terms of insurance, but it certainly is enhancing the risk management process."

Benson led the ACE Global Services improvement effort for multinational accounts, and as the Worldview concept began to take shape, Benson's role expanded to include multinational technology initiatives, including Worldview.

Benson and the ACE Global Services team launched the pilot in the spring 2010 with about 25 multinational programs. The main rollout began during late summer 2010.

Since the launch, more than 560 clients and brokers representing 172 multinational programs have signed up to use Worldview, with about 100 new users each month.

"Client feedback has been very positive," Benson said. "Several risk managers, in fact, have cited Worldview as a key reason for moving their multinational programs to ACE."

-- Tom Starner

CEO
Riskonnect Inc.

From the In-Box to the Chatter Box

Chatter's most interesting feature is that it can replace all email within a risk management or claims department.

When Bob Morrell began talking to clients about an exciting new collaboration and communication platform his company would soon be offering, he considered using comparisons to some of the popular mainstream social networking apps.

Instead, said Morrell, CEO at Riskonnect, the risk management information system provider based in Marietta, Ga., his company chose "business collaboration" to describe its latest client innovation. Why? Because even though the new tool, known as Chatter, has a strong social networking aspect to it, that's not what makes it so powerful.

Also, Morrell didn't want clients to think the platform was just another pretty face, you might say.

So what gives Riskonnect's Chatter, or enterprise business collaboration platform, its true punch, and what makes it innovative? Morrell believes the Chatter technology is much more than just a networking platform, as it delivers a solution for the very critical issue of discoverability to the world of risk management.

Morrell, whose original vision helped turn Chatter into reality, said it's all about communication, collaboration and control. Chatter's most interesting feature is that it literally can replace all email within a risk management or claims department.

In doing so, Chatter provides the "context" often missing from email discussions, and easily allows others who are involved, or who should be involved, to follow a discussion and contribute.

"For risk management, the question of discoverability (of a claim) is a critical issue, especially around email because email is discoverable," Morrell said. "But with email, the communication is done in a vacuum and if the right people are not copied or are part of the discussion, problems can and often do arise."

Morrell explains that with Chatter, discussions are an open book, and can be viewed by others who are following a specific claim or issue. As such, the natural inclination to self-monitor in front of others keeps users in check with their messaging. Things that should not be part of the record can quickly be changed, and senior management can follow along. "Concerns about internal communication around claims dissolve with Chatter, as greater visibility and transparency becomes a part of the culture," he said.

Chatter automatically pushes the status of important projects, claims, incidents, legal matters and other topics out to risk management staff in real-time. They can comment on a claim, an incident, an occurrence or any other object in the system. Users choose which information to follow and which conversations to engage in.

For example, users can follow a specific claim, which triggers automatic updates any time new information or new comments are added on that claim record. They can also choose to follow a dashboard or document attached to Chatter. If that dashboard is refreshed, or if a new version of the document is posted, they are alerted. System administrators also have controls over Chatter to limit access by certain people or groups, and users have controls to set up private groups among departments or teams.

Jeff Rose, business project manager, risk management, for the state of Utah, said that as his department has implemented Chatter it has been able to find multiple ways to boost effectiveness and transparency, while reducing paperwork and work hours.

For example, Rose said his department uses Chatter to track high-profile claims. Should a difficult claim arise, no longer does an adjuster need to gather the management team together for discussions, which might take one to two days depending on schedules. With Chatter, they send out a comment on what they have done or are going to do, and anywhere management might be with Web access, they can immediately follow the discussion. It amounts to a very accurate, and transparent, record.

"The adjuster can work the claim and if there is a problem or something a particular manager needs to address, they direct the message through Chatter to the right person," Rose said. "It's actually speeding up how fast claims can be settled."

Morrell also has developed a way that loss control can upload a document or picture via Chatter directly into the claim process, so a client gets instant knowledge on specific issues. "Unlike with email, you have the direct Chatter-generated data going into the claim file, creating a permanent record immediately," Rose said.

"We have been using the system for only two months, but we've found Chatter to be a critical component to speeding up the claim system, loss control function and the overall efficiency of risk management for the state of Utah," he said. "That's why it's truly innovative. It is easy to use, and really makes us all more effective."

-- Tom Starner

Founder/Product Architect
Active Agenda LLC

Sourcing a New Agenda in the Open

Dan Zahlis creates his own risk management software to reduce workplace risk, joins the open-source community, and then gives his code away.

Eight years ago, Dan Zahlis was a practicing risk manager for a very large and recognizable ice cream company, responsible for managing operational risk across the country.

He had to manage multiple facilities in multiple states with multiple functional departments--a very frustrating experience, as he recalled it.

"They were all attempting to manage risk using disparate systems and isolated information," he said. "I wanted a system that would allow our organization to streamline risk management using single systems to manage all types of risk across our global enterprise."

First, he turned to the insurance brokerage industry for solutions to the problem (the company was self-insured), but came up empty handed. So he did something drastic: He decided to create his own risk management software.

That was back in 2003, and by 2006 after money collected via what Zahlis called the "Three F's" (family, friends and fools) method, he thought he could find an investor to help him take his technology to the marketplace. Well, it didn't quite work out. Investors got greedy, he said.

So Zahlis turned to open source, a development method for software that "harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process," as he defined it.

Today, Zahlis' open source efforts are going strong, and he offers his risk management system solution for free. (The code is at sourceforge.net/projects/activeagenda.)

"Open source's promise is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost and an end to predatory vendor lock-in," Zahlis said.

"Our project mission is to reduce workplace risk through global collaborative development and free distribution of open technologies and ideas," he said. "Our software consists of more than 100 integrated risk-control modules."

As Zahlis explained it, by being an open source solution, his source code is implemented any way a user chooses to implement it. In most cases, the code is implemented by organizations on their local servers. In some cases, the application is implemented as a hosted service by independent service providers (Active Agenda, based in Clovis, Calif., will do it for a fee).

"We implement development by posting our work to a source code management system on the Internet," he said. "Anyone in the world can download our code. The only condition we place on using it is that improvements must be shared with the global community."

"I am very proud to have thoroughly evaluated and even been able to raise points of interest to Dan's app, which is everything I have been complaining we didn't have already when working for major brokers," said Nicolas Schnuderl, future manager, Croci Caraibes, and formerly an international account executive for both Aon France and Gras Savoye in France. "Active Agenda is scalable, highly customizable and benefits from decades of experience in the field."

Zahlis said the only true measurement he has of the impact of the firm's innovation is the number of people downloading the source code, which amounts to about 5,000 downloads so far; organizations like banks, municipalities, wineries, hospitals and universities, visiting the project website; and the people contacting Active Agenda for support or to provide feedback.

"Our web logs register visitors from around the globe and include a virtual who's who of businesses, not-for-profits, and government entities," he said.

The source code is being used "in ways we will never know," he said. One user, a winery in Australia, would not mention it by name in a recent magazine article because the winery considers the code a competitive advantage.

Right now, Zahlis is trying to convince brokers and carriers how smart it would be to provide sponsorships for his open source project, but it's been tough sledding.

"I tried the proprietary route and ran into the problems of people trying to lock it down and control it," he said. "But the idea of open source is you are going to release it and it gets built by people really interested in solving the problem."

Zahlis said his larger project agenda is to change the "culture" of the risk management industry by illustrating the power of open source principles to shed light upon problems that can result in loss. "Making this enterprise risk management tool available to the world for free eliminates many of the financial, political, and territorial barriers to organizations trying to manage risk," he said.

-- Tom Starner

Opening the Mind

A skilled manager working nearly 10 years ago for a premium food brand, Daniel F. Zahlis was searching for a solution to improve his self-insured employer's processes.

He found himself stymied at every turn. Redundancy, inertia, vested interests, deaf ears all took their toll. Tired but resolute, Zahlis decided to venture out on his own only to be rebuffed by cloistered, impatient, risk-averse communities of investors.

Dispirited, Zahlis decided to join the open-source community. The collaboration snowballed as others pitch in to help Zahlis develop new applications.

Sure enough, Zahlis flourished. Within weeks, his innovations attracted inquiries from as far away as Cape Verde Islands off the West Coast of Africa, to wineries in Australia.

Before long, Zahlis found himself giving away the source code for his new risk management application. Today, his open source efforts at Active Agenda are going strong. With a tagline that reads "Controlling loss, not minds, methods, or markets," Active Agenda doesn't need a mission statement.

Zahlis is a Responsibility Leader® because he has made his work available for free to benefit employees, customers and their community.