Top IT firms tapped to automate backroom operations of pre-need industry

Three of the country’s biggest information technology companies signed last week an agreement to fully automate the backroom operations of the entire pre-need industry.

"The industry has grown 25 percent a year over the last 10 years and 39 percent a year over the last three years. We have to support this rapid growth with efficient and advanced backroom operations," Philippine Federation of Pre-need Plan Companies Inc. president Juan Miguel Madrigal Vazquez said.

He said industry has 46 members and more than 1,200 branches serving over six million planholders throughout the country. The system proposes to link all of these via the Internet.

"Automation is the best way to improve our operations and service. The resulting efficiency would mean lower operating costs which could be passed on to the planholders through lower rates," he said.

The agreement was signed by the top officials of SAP Phils. Inc., SMITS Inc. and Mod.Net.Ph Internet Infrastructure Inc.

Under the agreement, SAP, the global leader in end-to-end business solutions, will provide its web-based mySAP.com insurance template needed to automate the systems of the country’s pre-need companies.

Mod.Net.Ph, a pioneering web-based solutions provider will provide the network and managed security services solution; SMITS, the information technology subsidiary of food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp., will act as the technical and logistics resources partner.

"Long term, what this offers the pre-need industry is that it will allow individual members to act as a collective organization," Ian Black, managing director of SAP Phils., said.

"When you get SAP, you’re getting top of the line software, and as a federation, we’re creating the opportunity for our members to get access to such services," he said.

Black said SAP is offering systems that would make the pre-need companies spend less resources and manpower. For instance, he said billing statements would be automatically generated, making collection and updating records easier.

"It will free the staff from most of their administrative tasks and allow them to focus more on their customers," Black said.

"The issue here is not letting go of our people, but leveraging our current manpower to meet our industry growth rate of 39 percent," Vazquez stressed.

He said automation would allow the pre-need industry’s more than 200,000 agents to be better in touch with their clients.