Client: MetLife
Industry: Financial Services - Insurance
Project: Impact Delivers Pension Maximization Solution to MetLife
Project Type: Professional Services
MetLife, Inc., through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to individual and institutional customers. The MetLife companies serve individuals in approximately 13 million households in the U.S. and provide benefits to 37 million employees and family members through their plan sponsors.
MetLife faced a tremendous organizational challenge that threatened a segment of their business within the members of the Colorado Pension Employee Retirement Association (COPERA). The emergence of aggressive competitors, armed with a significant amount of subject matter expertise and technology, forced MetLife to develop their own Pension Maximization solution in order to properly service this business and maintain a competitive advantage. MetLife required a custom solution delivered in less than three and a half weeks to prevent the loss of millions of dollars in potential revenue. Time requirements dictated a partnering company with deep domain knowledge of the financial services industry, skilled in the art of selling and presentations, and a superior technical expertise to complete the project. MetLife immediately turned to Impact. Impact was asked not only to design and to implement a new sales platform, but also to provide for future flexibility.
Impact deployed their "Rapid Development Team" to MetLife's Headquarters to begin the discovery process and define the scope of this engagement. The Impact team worked closely with the various business experts inside MetLife (compliance, technology, life insurance, and pension) to analyze current pension processes, to define MetLife's business rules, and to identify opportunities to leverage Impact's subject matter expertise and technology. This portion of the project was crucial in order to make quick but effective decisions that best met the needs of the perspective advisor working through the pension maximization sales process.
Within the first week, the Impact team finalized requirements and started to design the platform, sales presentation, and financial calculations needed to make this pension maximization application an effective tool. Impact leveraged its Web-based PlanLab platform and customized it to meet the business needs of MetLife. PlanLab, built on the Microsoft® .NET Framework, uses such technologies as Windows Server 2003 and Windows Sharepoint Services. In addition to meeting the immediate needs of MetLife, PlanLab also provided the flexibility for growth and the opportunity to add other planning modules to solve MetLife's future planning needs.
MetLife also received some unexpected benefits that added additional sales features to further enhance the selling experience. Upon logging on to the site, an advisor was now able to view a customized "My Site." Additional sections provided quick tips on how COPERA works and supplied the advisor with compliance approved brochures, presentations, fact finders, approach letters, and support resources.
Because of Impact's efforts, advisors were better equipped to collect, to analyze client data, and to make professional recommendations. Impact streamlined the financial sales process and helped position the MetLife advisor to capture the trusted advisor relationship.
This successful pension maximization sales platform helped MetLife:
"Being able to effectively react to an immediate business need for a target market segment is critical. This is especially true when the real cost is small, the opportunity is large, and the reusability factor is high. Impact and their use of Microsoft's platform made it a no brainer."
--Dan Weinberger
Assistant Vice President, Individual Business Sales Tools and Marketing Communications, MetLife, Inc.
Impact is a trusted innovator of financial software solutions and services to the banking, capital markets, and insurance industries. By positioning psychology and domain knowledge at the forefront of its approach, Impact helps its partner clients strengthen and enhance their sales processes while achieving business success through innovative design and application of cutting edge technology. Impact is a Gold Certified partner of Microsoft.
Impact Technologies Group, Inc.
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