Security is something we are very aware of, and it is only going to become a larger issue as technology is integrated with more and more of our daily routine.

CBS News is reporting that many modern copy machines now have internal hard drives that hold copies of all scanned documents.  Most users aren't aware of this taking place, and surprisingly enough, a lot of these copy machines don't even support the ability to erase these scanned files.  Worst of all, few people know that this is even taking place, so many companies are returning their leased copy machines with hard drives stored with scanned files of nearly every document that has passed through the device.  These used copy machines are essentially gold mines for data thieves and people looking to gain access to private information.

It is always important that you know who is handling your data, and what exactly is going on behind the scenes.

Take a look at the video report by CBS News from April 19, 2010:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n

"You can walk through the door where you treat the customer like your guest, operating by the rule that the customer is always right. Or you can be cutthroat. The first door is the door of kindness. That's the one I decided to walk through."

Bob Moore was a middle-aged retiree when he launched his second career. He nurtured it into a $70 million business -- and then gave it away to his employees.

How I Did It: Bob Moore, Bob's Red Mill

"One of my favorite investments that our firm made is in Delicious. The thing I loved about Delicious was its simplicity. There wasn’t much you could do, but what you could do was really quite powerful. People used it every single day, maybe 5 or 10 times a day. These services where you do one little thing, but you do it all the time, and it’s very reinforcing and you get a lot of utility out of it, and it’s quick, easy, and fast, I think tend to do very well and give you the platform to ultimately grow from there."

- Fred Wilson's 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps

WFO for back-office operations enables organizations to:

• Capture volumes and translate tasks into activities and processes that reflect all the work being done, including production and non-production activities (e.g., meetings, training, special projects). This includes manual tasks, for which there are no systems to derive volume data.

• Forecast work volumes and schedule staff regardless of physical or organizational location according to activities to be performed instead of hours to be worked. Maximizing resource utilization against the most important activities helps ensure deadlines and service levels are met.

• Create robust, enterprise capacity plans for current and future needs, including what-if scenarios.

• Monitor quality and adherence across functional areas to help mitigate risk and meet compliance requirements.

• Manage individual performance through electronic scorecards, providing feedback to individual employees on how they are doing against expectations and key success metrics. In doing so, the organization can roll up scorecards into enterprise dashboards to support key decision-making and measure performance against strategic goals.

From an article on Insurance and Technology

Today I called back a potential client, an SIU Manager,  I presented to last September.  When we last spoke he said to call him back in the Spring before his budget was due in July.  In our conversation this morning he respectfully said he would love to have SCOUT, but there are other priorities and his dept. is low on the list.  He didn't believe the folks who write the checks would even consider buying him an application to run his department more efficiently this year.

2 hours later I got this email:

Gartner, Inc. has identified 10 technologies that will have the greatest impact for the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry.

SCOUT integrates with:

Advanced Fraud Detection Solutions
It is key that insurers reduce losses and leakage to retain profitability. Better control of fraud is essential in accomplishing these goals. Advanced tools analyze data (structured and unstructured) to identify fraudulent claims in real time at point of data entry. This will assist P&C insurers in reducing losses that result in driving up operational costs and may result in companies having to increase insurance premiums based on these losses.

We've suprised a lot of people with how easy it is to integrate SCOUT with their claims system using Web-services:

Web Services and SOA Tools
P&C insurers operate a large ecosystem of systems and applications that integrate for seamless processing. In the past, companies had to hard-code integration between systems, which was costly, time-consuming, created challenges when applications were replaced and integration had to be redone, and was often difficult to overall due to technology incompatibility. The use of Web services/service-oriented architecture (SOA) enables companies to deploy services instead of using one-to-one integration. These technologies will help insurers improve their straight-through processing (STP) capabilities and reduce integration costs.

FULL REPORT:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1335313

I just read this article and was impressed by the founders comments, business model, and entrepreneurial spirit.  I was even a little inspired.  Then I read the comments at the end. 

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090901/americas-fastest-growing-private-company-its-in-insurance.html

Another amazing whitepaper from Deloitte about the state of current insurance operations and the need for new trends at hand:

"We argue that insurers' existing business operating models are not designed to achieve these new priorities.  The predominantly multi-divisional and decentralised models have resulted in increased organisational complexity, duplicated infastructure and localised, difficult to scale operations.  In addition, the functions that have a direct impact on controlling balance sheets and risk have had a diminished role under the prevailing models."

SCOUT is here to help.

Full report below.

Rethinking biz op models in insurance.pdf (416.62 kb)

I'm in the market for a new car and the folks over at SUBARU.COM have a really cool way to filter their product offerings based on pricing, horsepower, cargo space and more.  An ingenious way to narrow down my selection.

Slide the controls on the left side of the page.

http://www.subaru.com/vehicles/index.html

Some photos from the IFM 2010 show in Vegas