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*** Make a note: Meridien's Annual Summit Conference will be in Cambridge, MA, on May 20-21, 2002!***

New at Meridien Research for January 30, 2002

1. Converting Policyholders into Customers: Insurance Agents Hold the Key
2. Integrated, Multichannel Service Systems
3. Risk Integration Services: Should We Order Out?



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Latest Findings from Meridien:

1. Converting Policyholders into Customers: Insurance Agents Hold the Key
(Customer Relationship Management/Corporate Customer Management Client Access)
http://www.meridien-research.com/doc.asp?docid=825

Financial services institutions process sensitive customer data to deliver products and services to customers in a more efficient and effective manner. New technologies have made this data extremely mobile and vulnerable to uses beyond that for which it was initially collected. Regulators may issue stipulations about the data that can be collected and how it can be used, but customers may have their own set of stipulations. It is up to the institution to balance their demands for privacy with its need for adequate data. Technology can help, but one must understand its limitations. This report defines privacy management and describes how privacy management middleware works.

2. Integrated, Multichannel Service Systems
(Customer Relationship Management/Customer Interaction Client Access)
http://www.meridien-research.com/doc.asp?docid=824

Financial service institutions today face a large, oftentimes bewildering, and rapidly evolving array of service constituencies and channels, each with its own service needs and expectations. Many vendors and some progressive institutions are moving to integrate these multichannel service systems to provide a single source of service information for use across different service channels. This early outlook report examines this still developing trend. It reviews the driving factors, identifies the principal service trends, presents a conceptual model for integrated service, explores success factors, and considers adoption patterns.

3. Risk Integration Services: Should We Order Out?
(Risk Management Client Access)
http://www.meridien-research.com/doc.asp?docid=827

Risk projects are complicated and high risk. Most financial services institutions do not have the staff to fulfill all of the required resources through all of a project's phases and will have to hire assistance from outside. There are new ways, however, to combine the resources of business and IT consultants, vendor-provided services, and in-house capacities to significantly reduce total project costs. Once an institution has a framework for evaluating the abilities and appropriateness of professional service providers and their risk services on offer, it can selectively purchase the expertise and experience it lacks. This report provides such a framework for decision-making, breaking the evaluation process down into phases that mirror the process of acquiring and implementing a financial risk management system.

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