Small Business CRM

Here is an interesting review of the JavelinCRM software.

JavelinCRM is a SaaS offering, running on the Amazon cloud services.

Project & Program Management

A couple of interesting links.

This first one is a Gartner report that says it looks at a few vendors providing project and program management tools. However once getting into the detail you will find that this is a list of a few interesting tools that may assist in terms of increased productivity. Particularly in respect of task management, assignments, and email.

The second link is also a Gartner report, which looks at Project and Portfolio Management Offices. In particular it pushes the Gartner PMO Maturity Model. A pretty good (albeit heavily theoretical) take on how PMO's should fit with an organisation's process maturity. Generally, insurance companies tend to be somewhere between the lower end and the middle of the maturity model... (gross generalisation, of course).

The Challenges of Open Source

One of the challenges inherent in using Open Source software has been bought home over the past weeks. In building a new website, an intermittent error has shown itself in the Content Management System (www.silverstripe.com) that is being used as a framework.

Consulting the forums has been unhelpful, with zero response from the community. The question lurks - is this because it is so obvious that no-one can be bothered pointing the developer in the right direction, or is it so obscure that no-one can suggest a direction of investigation?

Interestingly, while the software itself is distributed under an open source license, there is a company based on it's development and utilisation in a commercial environment.

In the end, we come back to the conclusion that while Open Source has a number of inherent benefits, users must be prepared to get their hands dirty in the detail. It seems a deeper level of skill/knowledge is an implicit requirement when compared with other options.

Interesting Technology

An industry colleague introduced this company the other day. Open Square has developed a domain-specific language (PACT) along with a rules engine/infrastructure that can be used to model insurance products. A Visio front-end is used to develop the models, which should be fairly familiar for users. The models are uploaded to the engine, where they are instantiated.

This is going to be a fairly flexible piece of software, and could be used by Product Development team (model the product and generate complete product specs automatically?), or the IT department (model the product and automatically generate both requirement specifications and a prototype). It may also be of interest to other areas of the business. Worth keeping an eye on to see how it develops.

Hartford Japan

As this article shows, Hartford will cease selling New Business in Japan from 1st June. Having made the biggest splash in developing the Variable Annuity market in Japan, this is quite a turnaround. There is some speculation washing around that this is in part due to local insurance companies selling at a loss to drive other companies out of the market.

More Policy Administration vendors

Two more Policy Administration system vendors to add to the list:

Airas Intersoft (http://www.airasintersoft.com), hails from Ireland. They produce the iGas system, covering Life and Pensions. The system has been built using the Oracle technology toolset. They have clients across the world, although to date this has not extended to Asia.

IntelligentLife (http://www.intelligentlife.co.nz/), is from the opposite side of the world, New Zealand. The primary claim to fame is the launch of completely online, straight-through-processing of Life products (there is a link on the company website).