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Notes from Ted
Ted Gannan, CEO of Panviva
Welcome back. Since our last newsletter, we’ve seen some exciting developments in new customers, new partners and new products. Firstly, I’d like to welcome our newest customer, COLT (City of London) Telecom which implemented a SupportPoint enterprise license agreement in January. COLT joins HP and the Caterpillar dealer network as another of several multinational organizations that have recently bought unlimited SupportPoint licenses for their workforce.
We were also delighted to recently host our annual SupportPoint user group meeting this past February, in Melbourne. Our customers turned out in record numbers to watch Nigel Paine, former Chief Learning Officer for the BBC (UK) and a leader in learning development, deliver the keynote speech. Other highlights included longstanding client AUSTAR’s presentation on Central Know-How, their SupportPoint knowledge base, and a sneak peek at the alpha version of the next release of SupportPoint.
We also launched our new customer and partner portals at the February user group meeting. These portals will make it even easier to find technical, marketing and other information about Panviva as well as enable customers to log and track support issues. For more about our new portals see the Customer and Partner Portal article below.
There are many other exciting developments in the pipeline here at Panviva and I’m looking forward to sharing these with you in future issues of To The Point as we’re able to announce them. Until next time…
All the best.
Ted
Solution Corner
The Boomer Brain Drain in Insurance
We’ve been doing a lot of work in the insurance industry lately, both in Property and Casualty and Health Insurance. In speaking with heads of claims and underwriting operations, we’ve identified a common concern about how these organizations can deal with the major demographic shift that will result in the retirement of the Baby Boomers and the subsequent need to hire many new Millennial employees. To give you a perspective on the scale of this issue, many companies face the retirement of up to 25% of their claims adjusters and underwriters within the next three years. Indeed insurance carriers are already feeling the pain, with certain carriers reporting that they have some offices with as many as 75% of their underwriters and adjusters hired in just the past 6 months.
This demographic shift represents a huge challenge to insurers’ traditional approach to training and professional development. Gone are the days when a stable workforce meant that insurance carriers could afford to put adjusters and underwriters through three months of classroom training followed by six months of intensive supervision. There are just too many new employees, they are staying for a shorter time than ever, and there aren’t enough experienced personnel to provide the mentoring that’s needed.
This trend has generated a marked increase in interest for performance support. That’s because performance support is seen as a real alternative to spending large amounts on training new recruits, the majority of whom will leave within the first two years. It also represents a workable solution to the problem of retiring Baby Boomers walking out the door and taking all that that knowledge and skill with them.
Contact us to learn more about how performance support can play a significant role in addressing this issue in your organization.
Product News
SupportPoint 7.0 alpha
Participants in this year’s SupportPoint User Group Meeting were treated to a sneak peek demonstration of the SupportPoint 7.0 alpha release. SupportPoint 7.0 is a major version release due for go-live in the third quarter of 2008. It features a host of functional improvements, particularly for content developers. Just as important, it’s a platform enhancement that will allow us to branch out into exciting new areas of functionality to meet the needs of our customers managing call center and back office operations.
Over the following months, we will be meeting with our most active users to gather feedback on 7.0 and to discuss future development priorities. We look forward to gathering your input on our development activities and direction as we find some of our best ideas come from you, our customers.
Customer and Partner Portal
Panviva launched its new cutomer portal and partner portal at this year's annual SupportPoint user group meeting. These portals are designed to give customers and partners fast access to comprehensive technical information and the ability to submit and track support issues and change requests. Panviva partners can also access a growing body of sales and marketing support documentation that will help them better understand customer requirements and issues.
For more information or to register for access please contact us.
Try SupportPoint Viewer
If you’re considering buying SupportPoint, or if you’d just like to see what our software is all about, we’ve just released a fully functional trial version of the SupportPoint Viewer. The trial is accessible to anyone visiting our website. It includes a range of sample content for the insurance, banking and telecommunications industries and examples of support content for various ERP and CRM systems.
Visit the registration page to log in to the SupportPoint Viewer trial.
Links
For more information on SupportPoint:
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