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Van Gilder Success Story

Integration with Sagitta, features, functionality
answer office frustrations

Like many companies, the business strategies at Van Gilder are focused around gaining efficiencies in selling their product, and becoming more efficient in servicing and maintaining their customers. “If it doesn’t help out those two things, it’s going to be a pretty tough sale,” Tod Ashby, Vice President of IT, says of developing changes in their business processes.

Van Gilder was founded in 1905 and now has grown to the largest independent insurance brokerage firm in the Rocky Mountain Region. They operate from six locations, with their headquarters in Denver, Colo. As vice president of IT, Tod has been devising a solution to their paper problem since he joined the company more a decade ago. “I’ve been on a document management kick for almost 10 years,” Tod says.

As the person responsible for managing the agency’s technology advancements, Tod knew that document management was the solution they needed. “In a nutshell, it’s just a matter of efficiency,” Tod says. The sheer volume of paper going through their offices on a daily basis was an immediate indication of their need for a document management solution. Currently, the Denver office alone scans around 2,500 sheets a day.

Now instead of filing into hard-to-search cabinets, one person in their office is responsible for scanning and indexing. Previously, old documents had to be archived into five storage units that required courier costs for retrieval, not to mention the cabinets that consumed their floor space. Tod was right – the office clearly needed a way to minimize the resources lost as a casualty of outdated processes.

Van Gilder looked at several document management solutions. After the panel of five or six users, IT professionals, and training managers saw the PaperWise product the decision to use it was unanimous. Their greatest priorities in selecting a system were features, functionality, and integration. The employees at Van Gilder are all impressed by the changes their PaperWise system has delivered. “It allows our employees to stay at their desks and do work – often by answering a customer inquiry in one phone call,” Tod says.

Quick Retrieval

In searching for a system, filing, search and retrieval were some of the highest priority features for Van Gilder. PaperWise provides a solution to the issues that were slowing down their processes. One of the most significant benefits they have reaped is the ability to find any file immediately.

Tod explains that with their old processes, they often had to go to multiple places to find what they needed. “Now everything we need is in one spot,” he says. They used to spend a lot of time searching for documents. With so many archived files, they were forced to store files off site. “It really boils down to getting that information efficiently,” Tod says.

Instead of spending time looking for documents in numerous places, Van Gilder associates now search for and retrieve documents instantaneously. Although they experienced minimal problems with misfiling previously, they were simply spending too much time looking for all the documents needed for a client, which resulted in inefficiencies when dealing with customers.

A good portion of the tasks carried out by Van Gilder employees on a daily basis deal with creating new accounts and answering customer service inquiries. PaperWise provides such a complete solution to these two major processes that the value of the system is immeasurable for Van Gilder.

Fast Training

Not only do users benefit from increased efficiencies offered by PaperWise, but Tod was even pleased with the speedy learning curve. He explains that by the end of the first week, one of the people in the office who he knew would be one of the toughest ones to sell commented on how easy it is to use. Now that they have used the system, they could never operate without it. “They not only rely on it, they like it,” Tod says.

Reliable Back-up Plan

Although Van Gilder has not experienced any problems with disaster recovery since they began using PaperWise in February 2005, the members of the IT department can now sleep soundly at night knowing their data is protected.

“PaperWise meets other IT objectives like business continuity so if there’s a fire or flood, we can restore it,” Tod says. Their company goal to function with “Seamless Office Operations” is supported by their document management initiative. “We wanted any customer to be able to call any Van Gilder office and get answers,” Tod says.

Seamless Integration

Van Gilder uses Sagitta, an AMS financial management system for larger agencies. PaperWise specialists quickly integrated the two systems, allowing them to exchange information and eliminating any need for dual data entry. Tod was especially impressed with the process because it was the first integration with this particular AMS product. “The way they’ve done the integration, PaperWise is kind of a natural extension of our management system,” Tod says.

Flexibility

PaperWise also offers them the option to have employees work from home if they need to. With all files available through a simple Internet connection, location does not have to play a role in how much work can be accomplished. “They can work as a team regardless of physical location,” Tod says.

Further Functionality

The PaperWise implementation team has already built a set of custom audit tools to help satisfy Van Gilder’s particular goal of tracking all activity and ensuring procedures are followed. In the future, Tod says they hope to begin using features such as the Dashboard and the Workbench more fully. “Our goal is to start easing into some of these features and see how they can help us,” he says. Right now, they are using back-end scanning but would love to transition to front-end eventually.

A Brighter Future

In the future, Van Gilder is looking to expand their use of PaperWise to more users, departments, and locations. “Right now, we’re working on getting the non-front-office people to use PaperWise,” Tod says. When it comes to a competitive advantage, Tod says having PaperWise definitely gives them an edge in their industry. “Everything goes back to selling and servicing,” he says. “Our customers never have to wait to have a question answered,” he says.