Redefining Information Technology

Continued

For its brokers, AFG offers efficiencies in scaling up their business, through payment, security, training, accreditation, compliance, and other factors. For lenders, AFG is a highly efficient channel for connecting customers to their products. "It's critical that we deliver profitable customers to our lenders, so they don't have a reason to bypass us and try to go directly to the consumers," says Watkins. "Our IT infrastructure is the critical link between those lenders and our brokers and their customers. Technology is fundamental to our future success and our existence."

One of the benefits to AFG in using technologies like Siebel CRM aggressively has been its ability to understand its customer base better that its competitors can. "Now, we're in a situation where no one can do what we can do," says Watkins. "No one can roll out, integrate, and understand their customer base and have that essential customer viewpoint in the same way that we do. That's an enormous power and a unique advantage in that."

However, to continue its success, AFG knows that it needs to continually invest in its business—on both the people side and the technology side. "I think our other unique advantage is that we've always reinvested back in our business massively," says Watkins. "For example, we have the largest support staff in the industry. We have more people on the ground servicing our brokers, as well as servicing the lending community."

Moving to a Customer Focus

On the technology side, AFG is preparing to take its systems and customer analytics to the next level by completely turning its approach inside out. Over the next five years, AFG will move its sales, marketing, and management systems from a sales and product focus to a customer focus.

For example, today AFG doesn't really know about customers until the brokers enter them into the system.

"Over the next five years, we've got to use our technology to acquire customers and provide those customers back to the brokers," says Watkins. Instead of waiting for brokers to deliver customers to them, AFG will work with its brokers to proactively identify new customers and match them to brokers and financial services providers. Leveraging new features of Siebel CRM 8.0, such as its task-based user interface, is an important part of this plan. "A task-based user interface makes it easier for our brokers to navigate through applications, since what they will be presented with onscreen is linked to the task they're doing," says Watkins. "It will enable us to roll out new services, new ideas, and new products that are more intuitive and do not require much training."

In addition, AFG sees additional benefits in an upgrade to Oracle's Siebel CRM 8.0, including a large iHelp system (which will take some pressure off its help desk and reduce training and support time), improved Web services, and Web services support that will play an important role in AFG's future internet retail strategies.

"Our goal over the next five years is to completely integrate the marketing and technology departments into one department and use the technology for customer acquisition to complement our personal service," says Watkins. "We'll be moving from a sales focus to a customer focus."