In a virtual age, when much business is conducted via email and other electronic means, document management takes on a new form. Integro Insurance Brokers knows about shifting paradigms. It was founded in 2005 to respond to consolidation in the insurance brokerage industry that had left the major risk market underserved.

So when the company was looking for an information management system it wanted one that would understand a company like Integro that serves clients with virtual teams of experts who may be dispersed all over the world.

“We are willing to bring in our best people no matter where they are, but we need to have the technology to act as if we are all local,” explained Craig Lowenthal, Integro Insurance Brokers’ CIO. Integro looked at other file management systems but concluded that they had developed an electronic version of a paper file paradigm; they didn’t take full advantage of electronic filing.

That’s when it came across Q.Know, an information management system for managing any type of document that works from Microsoft Outlook.

“It’s a way to have a deal file that contains all traces of our customers,” Lowenthal said.

Q.Know uses intelligent tagging to allow each user to design the way he or she works with documents by creating individualized views of all electronic information without altering core database systems or networked file structures. Different individuals or departments within the same company may want to organize material in different ways. With Q.Know, marketing, HR, or finance can determine how they want to work with their files and the software allows them to set those preferences.

Because most office workers spend much of their day in Outlook, that is the interface that Q.Know uses.

“Q.Know understands that most information comes electronically and you can’t work on emails and attachments without an easy and consistent way to file them,” added Lowenthal. “Q.Know makes the assumption that most people spend their day working out of Outlook or the email system.” Q.Know works only with Outlook, but given that Outlook is pretty much the standard on the desktop, that was a sound decision, he added.

“Most people live out of their inbox during the day. Q.Know, instead of creating a separate interface, integrates with Outlook. I can open email and it becomes integrated, and I can write in my Outlook window, and search and find any information. That ease-of-use translates into adoption and that is what our brokers love about it,” he said.

In addition to Microsoft Outlook, Q.Know uses Microsoft Office, .NET Web services based on Internet Information Server 6.0, Windows Indexing Services, which is built into the Windows Server operating system, and the Microsoft SQL Server database, said Steve Drill, CTO at Q.Know.

Q.Know creates a single copy of the file that others can access. Rather than send the file to everyone on a project, a user just sends them the file location and they can access the information. The system incorporates access control and check-out/check-in for materials.

“Once you file an email, the rest of the team has access to that information, which furthers our collaboration and virtualization,” said Lowenthal. “If a client sends a copy to three people, you only need to file it once and the other two will know that it has been filed; it makes filing very easy.”

Q.Know learns how an individual or a team works and then uses that knowledge to provide prompts.

“Once I start filing for a client, Q.Know will suggest how to file the rest for that client, which makes user adoption phenomenal; we have a dozen or two people using it and they just love it,” Lowenthal said.

Carvill in London, one of the world’s finest independent reinsurance brokerages, recently selected Q.Know to be the foundation of a business-led technology initiative to improve client service. From the Q.Know interface, Carvill brokers will now be able to manage every electronic file type – whether research, email, modeling reports or back-office data – in a customizable view in Microsoft Outlook.

“After looking thoroughly at other documentation management and collaboration technologies, it was clear that Q.Know’s unique Microsoft Outlook-based platform was designed with a deep knowledge of our business and an insight into what it takes to gain competitive advantage in a highly regulated marketplace,” said John Furlong, chief information officer at Carvill.”

www.integrogroup.com
www.qknow.com