DSPA Software Inc., a Toronto-based developer of distribution management and sales compensation software for insurance companies, and Microsoft Canada Co. in May announced the successful implementation of DSPA’s Field Administration Support and Tracking (FASAT) application with Manulife Financial, Canada’s largest life insurance company.
Running on Microsoft Windows Server System integrated server software, FASAT enables Manulife to enhance the services it provides to its agents and brokers, increasing efficiencies and driving sales.
“Maximizing business-process efficiencies was our number one goal for replacing our existing legacy channel management systems with FASAT,” a news release attributes to Doug Powers, Manulife’s assistant vice-president of distribution systems. He noted that the solution helped to improve the service levels to their managing general agents (MGA) to the point where channel sales leaders were able to market the new FASAT-based system as a value-add. He added that it enhanced their overall offering and helped the company’s Canadian sales force.
According to the release, previously Manulife had been using a legacy mainframe system to manage its producer compensation. This system, and the many manual processes around it, were limiting Manulife’s ability to provide the required level of service to this growing producer channel. As part of a bigger strategy for the Canadian division, Manulife planned to deliver improved services to their producers and turned to DSPA and Microsoft to provide a solution.
DSPA worked with Manulife to implement the FASAT application which met the majority of Manulife’s business requirements out of the box. As a result, Manulife’s MGA channel was up and running in seven months. Following the deployment, Manulife was able to deliver easy-to-read commission statements and improve their response time to advisor inquiries. FASAT is also said to have enabled Manulife to increase the frequency of compensation payments to their MGAs. Since implementation of the first phase of the project, Manulife has now delivered the FASAT application to their national accounts channel through a four-month project. Planning is underway to deliver the system to their independent advisor channel.
“In order to remain competitive in this quickly evolving industry, organizations need to be equipped with a more agile infrastructure — one that will allow them to change sales tactics frequently and respond rapidly to market drivers,” noted Don Campbell, senior sales executive, DSPA Software Inc. “Working in conjunction with Microsoft, we are able to provide customers with the flexibility they need to achieve better results and a foundation that they can continue to build upon.”
“Our goal is to help financial services organizations streamline their core business operations and make transactions more efficient,” added Randy Lenaghan, director of Financial Services Group for Microsoft Canada. “Working with leading software vendors like DSPA, we are able to help organizations reduce processing time from end-to-end, making it as seamless as possible.”
