| Home | Software Providers | Consultants | Articles | Columns | Reviews | Headlines |

-

RMIS center lets users try it before they buy it

Risk Management Systems & Strategies
Spotlight Report December 2, 1996

Choosing the right risk management information system should be easier, a consultant says. Too often, risk managers try a system in the perfect environments set up by RMIS vendors only to find it doesn't work quite so well when it has been installed at a risk manager's desk, he says.

To try to overcome this and other RMIS purchasing problems, Deloitte & Touche L.L.P. has established an RMIS Lab at its Hartford, Conn., office.

The RMIS Lab allows risk managers to try the systems in a more realistic environment and work with Deloitte consultants to choose the most suitable systems for their companies, says David P. Duden, national RMIS practice leader.

Indeed, The Walt Disney Co. found a two-day session at the lab a helpful and easy way to review selected information systems before it decided what to buy, said Tim East, manager of risk management business processes at Disney in Burbank, Calif.

And more than 20 other companies have expressed an interest in using the lab since it was launched Nov. 1, Mr. Duden said. ``We hope the lab experience will change the paradigm of how to buy software,'' he said.

By trying out the systems away from the supervision of an RMIS company salesman, and with the help of independent consultants, systems buyers should be able to attain a deeper knowledge of how different systems stand up to each other, he said.

Mr. Duden first floated the ide a in April during the Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc.'s annual conference in Toronto.

By visiting RMIS vendors exhibiting at the conference, he was able to ask whether they would provide software to the lab, Mr. Duden said.

So far, nine vendors have supplied the lab with software and several others are expected to agree to add to that number, he said. Some vendors declined to participate.

The existing nine are: American Technical Services Inc.; Anistic s; Conway Computer Group Inc.; Corporate Systems Ltd.; Crawford RSG; Delphi Technologies; Embassy Group; Near North Technologies; and Risk Laboratories.

The software is installed in the lab at Deloitte's Hartford offices, where pote ntial RMIS buyers can visit and work on the variety of systems, Mr. Duden said. Companies are charged depending on the level of service they use.

The lab also is a useful way for employees who will be using the chosen RMIS to test a variety of systems, he said. "Often the people that make the purchasing decision are not the people that will use it from day to day,'' Mr. Duden said.

If the customers request it, representatives from RMIS vendors can come and present their own systems in a conference room at the Deloitte's offices. Alternatively, the vendors can participate in such sessions through a video conference facility, Mr. Duden said.Many of the RMIS vendors initially were concerned about confidentiality and security issues, particularly the possibility of other participating vendors copying aspects of their systems, Mr. Duden said.

To allay those fears, Deloitte ensured that the lab was in a secure room; guaranteed no vendor would be allowed into the lab without a Deloitte staff member; and secured all of the databases with passwords.

"It took a little persuading, because it was the first time that someone had asked them to place their software in a lab,'' Mr. Duden said.

The main benefit of the lab to buyers is that it allows them to test and compare systems in an independent environment, he said. Without the use of the lab, most prospective risk management information system buyers have little alternative but to see demonstrations on the vendors' terms, Mr. Duden said.

By using the lab, buyers can see how the software works on hardware similar to their own and, if they wish, they can use some of their own data to test how the systems handle it, Mr. Duden said.

"We hope to be able to take data from clients, say 50 to 100 claims, and load those data elements in to the various systems,'' he said.

While some systems may seem to have certain functions a buyer is looking for, they may not be appropriate for the volume of claims a buyer needs to process. By using the lab, prospective buyers can derive a clearer idea of capacity of the various systems that they cannot obtain from vendor-controlled demonstrations, he said.

And, by having a variety of systems available, clients will be able to select different products from di fferent vendors more easily and see how they might work in a composite system, Mr. Duden said.

Deloitte also hopes to set up some benchmarks to compare the systems.

"We have to be real careful, because the vendors are so different i n their approach. And we don't want to compare vendors too much or we might lose the support of the vendors,'' Mr. Duden said.

But Deloitte could compare some functions, such as how many keystrokes it takes each system to perform certain tasks, or maybe compare related services, such as vendor response time from their various help desks, he said.

"We could also think up the ultimate RMIS by taking the best from each system and compare the ones in the real world with the ultimate alternative,'' Mr. Duden said.

While buyers now must visit the lab in Hartford to do comparisons, eventually it should become a "virtual lab'' accessible online from clients' offices, Mr. Duden said.

But that development will depend on vendors developing appropriate software, he said. "Some of the vendors are six months away from that situation, but others are two to three years away,'' Mr. Duden said.

The RMIS lab was a great help to Disney in its selection of a RMIS, said Mr. East. "I thought it was a much better way of selecting a system, and it was well worth the time, effort and expense,'' he said.

One of the main benefits of the lab is that it reduces the time between testing several systems to a few minutes from several weeks or months, so it is easier to compare the different systems, Mr. East said.

The lab setting also eliminates any problems that vendors might cite when they make presentations from laptops computers, such as a vendor suggesting a demonstration would suffer because of a slow phone line, he said.

"It puts the system in a real environment so we can see how it really works,'' Mr. East said.

In tha t environment, Mr. East and his colleagues were able to use the various systems extensively and enter in claims information to test how they work, he said.

Since the session last month, Disney has decided to buy products from a variety of vendors to build a customized system that meets all its needs, Mr. East said.

Only one of the vendors it had been considering had not supplied software to Deloitte, he added.