The Infrastructure And Capital Market Weakness

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The company is dependent upon contact with the customer and serves the customer through its insurance products. These relationships result in increased profits and these profits ensure a long-run economic performance. It is because of these concerns that Aflac collaborated with Open Text and introduced the Livelink Enterprise to its employee’s, clients, partners, and shareholders. Aflac was initially doing business the old fashion with pen and 5000 sheet computer print outs. Though it had some computer technology on board, it was nowhere near what is in place today. This new information system would allow collaboration across many departments and ensure Customer Relationship Management efficiency. Now all employees within the organization would have access to real time information and that could be manipulated or updated instantly and accessed in the forms or methods of outputs that could be delivered to the client in real time situations.

The Livelink information system records, stores, and manages large amounts of information that is processed and transformed for use to its policyholders, employees, and communities. The system is customizable and features services such as process automation, group scheduling, and information retrieval. It is the foundation that Aflac uses to build its e-community relationships and the business processes that spans throughout the organization and the insurance industry. The system is web-based friendly and fully functional through the use of a standard web browser. This ensures that information is rapidly deployed and easily accessed by all of its users. The paragraphs below describe the software used in its client and server based processes.

Easylink uses cloud and electronic data interchange (EDI) to exchange information between the system users. The user may be a policyholder, employee, or some other community group user. A set of define formats determines which modules the user has access to and produces forms or other forms of output that is recommended for the users purpose. To produce these outputs the system process requires mapping, translation, and communication

Fax and Document Distribution was previously done by a team of document specialist because the majority of the information being received at Aflac was being done through fax or by mailing the document to the organization. With the new system in place faxes and electronic documents are part of an automated process.

The Managed File Transfer module forces large files, whether inside or outside of the company, to go through a governance and security process in order to exchange the contents, often times made up of sensitive intellectual property, between the employee, policyholder, or partner.

Data and Content Integration unifies the information received from many channels and applications by transforming and consolidating the data.

The Capture and Recognition module works alongside the fax and document distribution module. Through the use of character recognition, document transformation, and data extractions software documents and images are captured and interpreted reduce manual keying and to automate the paper handling process.

Cloud-based File Sharing allows files to be shared and synchronized throughout the organization with its output in a form that is viewable through the use of an electronic device.

In order for the software to have an impact on its client driven business it must pack a lot of power. It provides solutions for exchange and discovery through its Information Management System which allows the organization to have better insight, reduce risk, and create efficiency and positive impact. This module is made up of the following:

Content Management manages information throughout the lifecycle of the system by capturing the information and providing it when and where it is needed. Throughout this process the storage capacity is being challenged so the module archives the information and the information that is not needed is stored away. The system allows the stored information to be tiered or stored at different stages in the lifecycle. This information is further managed through records management and is eventually removed from the system in accordance with the internal governing policies and external regulations. In the same way emails are secured and maintained within the system. Serving as the hub of the system, a complete view of real time information is being delivered, after going through the governing laws module, when and where it’s needed and better decisions can be made by the requestor of the information. Also within this module is a training module that ensures timely and effective training takes place that keeps the employees aware of the changing products and services, compliance requirements, and process improvements that are essential. This module typically solves the issues that involve high risk decisions.

Business Process Management involves a range of options that come together to produce specific experiences and significant results by providing support for a large range of business operations through a comprehensive integration process. This segment combines workflow, content, business rules with the knowledge of how workers interact with the client. It allows the employee to adapt to the changing request and define the task needed to ensure that the output is positive. It includes the customer’s policy and claim information that must be driven to the back office where it can serve as a record and a platform for workflow and collaboration. Therefore, it allows the organization to align it business strategy with it technological execution to optimize its operations while addressing a wide range of fully integrated processes.

Customer Experience Management module delivers a unique online personalized experience to the customer, employee, and partners through rich media and web content management. This management improves the business to business and business to customer relationship to ensure that the data received is in an acceptable and understandable form that can be viewed on the web or printed. It also allows the individual to socialize, work together, or share knowledge internally or externally.

Discovery allows information to be organizes and visualized so ensure that users find it and answers to their questions quickly. This is done through incorporating a search, e-discovery, content analytics, semantic navigation, and auto-classification. The system eliminates the need for users to manually identify records and apply classifications.

The placement of the Livelink System ridded the company of phone calls from clients who only wanted basic policy information. The client could now log-in to the online system using various credentials and view the information, make minor changes, and update the policy information. This left the client exceedingly happy, the employee free to handle the more important demands of the day, and the satisfaction ratings higher than ever. The implementation of the system resulted in long-term positive relationships with its policyholders, employees, and partners. The system implementation increased CRM efficiency and decreased the amount of money that was required to support Aflac’s day to day business process. The software and hardware systems were doing what they were designed to do.

The hardware which is required to house the system can be easily labeled a deluxe package because of the many peripherals that are required to meet the organizations output. Each employee is given 1-2 computer monitors depending on their department, a central processing unit (CPU), mouse, keyboard, and a telephone. Aflac has employed thousands at its United States and Japan locations. That’s a lot of computers, not to mention the cable that is needed to network each one of them to the stand alone servers.

These content servers are assembled based on the number of persons accessing the system. Aflac has several large servers with at least 8 CPU Cores with at least 32 Gigs of Ram. These servers store the passwords and logins using encrypted algorithm and masking. They are validated through the active directory on the server which limits access through the use of SSL Certificates. The server allows user groups and community types such as public, private, and secret. It also supports the internet explorer browser and various mobile devices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and RIM BlackBerry. Other things required to operate the system are internet, extranet, and windows. Aflac upgrades its window packages as the new versions are released.

The Livelink System has many additional features and the following are just a few. To list them all would require a more in depth study of the system and someone with the IT knowledge to define their use, process, and their benefits. The things that are being mentioned in this analysis are common and consistent throughout this type of system.

Once your name, address, date of birth, policy number, or some other requested piece of information has been put into the database it goes through a wide range of complex process in which the data is recorded, stored, extracted, transformed, and delivered to the requestor in a specific form. This form might be as a form, a report, as an image to be viewed on an electronic output device, or it may be printed for your personal records. Furthermore, the system has the ability to identify, extract, and move records between users, departments, or partners so that if additional questions need to be addressed the real time information is available and is an output form that will allow the caller to be assisted.

The system is setup to use wizards that can guide the user through a requested process step by step. This allows the user to access the help module if needed. Though the system is user friendly, this is especially beneficial for the new user who has never used the platform. It is just as useful to the new employer who may have questions concerning the products available or questions the validity of a process.

The system wizards are also connected to the learning system that is built into the platform for the employees. The learning system allows the users to train on the system in order to keep them current with new products but also to keep them up to date on HIPPA requirements and other governmental law requirements.

The calendar within the system allows individual and group scheduling. This is a great benefit to the teams that make up the departments. A team could be scheduled for training alone or with a bigger group. The information could be forwarded to the individual and automatically added to their calendar with the push of a button. In addition, it allows the system based on input to automatically produce correspondence that is date specific. Correspondence concerning a policyholder’s policy is always date forced and since certain things must be received at a certain time this module helps to ensure that those requirements are met.