A major business transformation fueled by an ambitious move to a service-oriented architecture is unfolding at Unum, helping the employee supplemental benefits provider take the No. 5 spot in this year's InformationWeek 500.

The goal of the company's Simply Unum initiative was to make it easier to serve customers, but the project was by no means simple to launch. It was two years in the making prior to the rollout in August of last year, has involved every Unum department that interacts with customers, and is transforming the way the company conducts much of its business.

Unum initially is aiming the project at small and midsize customers and insurance brokers. But the company plans to take the model to larger employers, as well as to go global with it in the United Kingdom, where Unum already does business, and in new markets, says Kathy Owen, Unum's U.S. senior VP and CIO.

Behind the scenes, Simply Unum integrates and automates what previously had been dozens of manual and cumbersome processes, while providing its customers with a portal for self-service capabilities. Through the portal, customers can get answers to questions about policy enrollment, billing, claims, and more. And for those customers who prefer to talk to a person, Simply Unum provides customer service phone reps with an integrated view of customers' pertinent data.

Simply Unum will make it easier for the company to introduce new products and services, including traditional supplemental group benefits such as life and disability insurance, as well as voluntary workplace benefits like supplementary insurance for critical illnesses and accidents.

	CIO Owen's a SOA believer

The objective was "to transform how we engage the small-employer market, how we deliver to employers to meet the needs of their employees," says Owen. The project has helped Unum evolve from being "a product-centric organization to one focused on the needs of external customers," she says.

MEGA-COLLABORATION
Technology was key in making Simply Unum happen. "We couldn't start from scratch," Owen says. Using SOA, Unum was able to take advantage of its legacy assets. From the launch of the project, collaboration between the company's business units and its technology organization was vital. Between 400 and 500 business and tech people were involved in the project. That's a pretty big team, considering Unum has an 800-employee IT organization.

Simply Unum came about in response to economic trends, especially those in recent years that have made employee health care and other benefit costs increasingly expensive for employers to provide. Employers are dealing with double-digit increases in health benefit costs, as well as an aging and more diversified workforce. As a result, they're trying to find new ways of offering benefits that meet the changing needs of workers but in an affordable way.

Simply Unum makes it quicker and easier for employers to get price quotes from the company on specific benefit packages, based on complex calculations about risks that include considerations such as whether employers have a high percentage of smokers or older workers who might be more likely to become critically ill or disabled over the term of the policy. It also helps employers to more quickly and easily design benefits packages for workers and assists them in calculating prices on these packages that affordably share the cost of the coverage between employer and employee.