Playing Well With Others: Why Integration is as Important as Performance

There’s a reason why many organizations, including insurance companies, stick with their legacy content management system, regardless of age or performance or how often it’s actually used or if the vendor who sold the company the product even exists anymore. Because if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Right?

That’s true, to some extent. But think of that legacy system as a bicycle. A good Schwinn, 20 years old, with a little rust, but smooth gears and a cool banana seat. There’s no reason for you to buy a 10-speed or a trail bike. The Schwinn works just fine.

But what if you could transform your Schwinn – convert it into a faster, more modern mode of transportation – by adding an electric motor? One that fit seamlessly to the frame and powered the pedals automatically?Same Schwinn, greater speed and power.

Similarly, what if you could transform your paper processes and convert your legacy imaging system with enterprise content management (ECM) to create faster, more modern business practices? Practices that provide your staff with the information they need, when they need it,improving customer and agent service?

It’s possible.

"The insurance market is quickly teaching vendors that it’s not always how well a product works on its own that matters,” says Ruth Fisk, title. “In fact, more often, it’s how well these products work with other products that really makes the difference."
Seamless integration with legacy systems is something OnBase, Hyland Software’s ECM software solution, is known for. And for Hyland, seamless integration – or playing well with others - is all about helping its customers get more value out of their technology investments.

Up and Running

Before implementing a strategic ECM solution, Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company (GMRC), the world’s largest farm mutual reinsurer, relied on slow, manual, paper-based processes for some of its most criticaltasks. With no way to enforce consistent procedures within teams, performancesuffered across departments. Inconsistent records management increased legal concern.Underwriters spent too much time chasing paper and struggled to meet processinggoals. Andwith little HR visibility into the annual employee review process, staffwas pulled away from their main responsibilities.

OnBase was able to solve all those problems. Monthly reports are securely, accurately tracked and recorded, with 97 percent of the process automated. The HR review process, also automated, is done within six weeks. And consistency has cleaned up the underwriting process (With OnBase, GMRC collects and routes all underwriting applications consistently, with underwriters receive only complete applications and must follow the same steps toprocess it).

But all of that was less important than the way OnBase integrated with the software systems, like Lawson, that GMRC already had implemented.

"We chose OnBase because we thought we could get it up and running the fastest across departments,” says Marti Lattimer, content management manager at GMRC. “Some applications are designed to work best in one area,but we wanted something the entire company could use."