about impact t echnologies group
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Solution Abstract
PlanLab Office System
Partner Information
Partner Name: Impact Technologies Group, Inc.
Web Site: www.advancedimpact.comBusiness/Technical Contact: Kevin R. Clay, President
[email protected] ext 222
About Impact Technologies GroupImpact Technologies Group, Inc. provides solutions and services to financial institutions in the banking, capital markets, and insurance industries. Founded in 1981,
Impact Technologies Group provides innovative sales, communication, and planning tools that facilitate the sales experience and help advisors and their customers make informed decisions by presenting complex financial concepts and calculations in a form that makes sense. Developed with a firm understanding of sales psychology, Impact Technologies solutions are built on the Microsoft® .NET Framework and deliver integrated, easy-to-use technology and financial analysis—often expanding the scope of the industry they are designed to serve.
Participating Programs
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Program
Logo
Regional Markets
U S. Districts
All U.S. districts
Global Districts
Canada
Solution Abstract
PlanLab Office System
PlanLab Office System
About the PlanLab Office System Solution
Solution Name
PlanLab Office System
Brief Description or Tagline
A complete enterprise solution for the financial planning sales process
25-word positioning statement
PlanLab Office System reduces the time that financial advisors spend gathering and analyzing information, enabling them to spend more time with clients and close more sales.
50-word product description
PlanLab Office System reduces the time that financial advisors spend gathering and analyzing information, enabling them to spend more time with clients and close more sales. By automating the information-gathering and financial plan-generation processes and by providing a collaborative workspace, PlanLab Office System enables advisors to provide consistent planning advice and superior service.
100-word product description
PlanLab Office System is a powerful financial analysis and workflow solution that helps financial advisors gather, analyze, and present information more effectively. By automating the information-gathering and financial plan-generation processes and by providing a collaborative workspace, PlanLab Office System streamlines the sales process, enhances planning team productivity and communication, and facilitates best practices across the institution. Advisors can provide consistent advice and superior services, strengthen client relationships, and close more sales. PlanLab Office System is built on the Microsoft® Windows Server System™ platform and Microsoft .NET Framework for a highly scalable and extensible solution that enhances the financial planning environment in a number of ways.
Solution OverviewPlanLab Office System automates the financial sales process across an enterprise, from initial fact finding to financial plan generation, enabling financial advisors to work more effectively with clients and close more sales. With PlanLab Office System, advisors can work with clients to define their financial goals, collect and analyze relevant information, model different planning scenarios, collaborate with the planning team on the most effective way to meet client needs, and then generate customized proposals. PlanLab Office System can also be combined with other Impact Technologies financial planning tools such as PlanLabX3 and Financial Canvas to further enhance the sales and financial planning environment for both advisors and clients.
PlanLab Office System supports advisors with a powerful financial analysis and workflow solution that streamlines the sales process and facilitates best practices across the firm. With PlanLab Office System, advisors save significant time and effort by applying best practices to each client situation, regardless of a planner’s individual expertise and level of experience. PlanLab Office System helps advisors collaborate with specialists, generate thoughtful plans, and deliver consistent, superior planning advice. With less time spent collecting data and performing administrative tasks, advisors can spend more time with clients, strengthening relationships and expanding sales opportunities.
PlanLab Office System
Financial advisors can replace their multiple paper data forms with a single Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003 form. PlanLab Office System thus can easily generate a wide variety of analyses, in areas such as educational funding shortfalls, disability requirements, retirement planning, and investment risk profiles. When filling out the XML-based InfoPath 2003 form,
advisors can access valuable planning resources from the task pane, including college cost lookups, stock quotes, and mutual fund quotes. PlanLab Office System thus creates a complete client profile in a format that is easy to analyze, eliminates redundant data collection, reduces data entry, and provides convenient access to planning tools.
Client data submitted from the fact finder form goes to Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004 for processing and the application of business rules. BizTalk Server 2004 automatically builds Microsoft Windows® SharePoint™ Services sites based on those rules so that the advisory team can begin collaborating on planning. The fact-finder results are created and posted automatically to the planning site as Microsoft Office Word 2003 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 documents, saving team members hours of production time.
Access to the client’s sensitive financial information is restricted by Information Rights Management (IRM), a technology provided in Microsoft Office System programs that protects documents by enabling users to define how documents and e-mail messages can be accessed and used. Once set, document and message permissions travel with the document as part of the contents of the file.
Announcements and task assignments based on the client’s current financial situation and goals are posted to the site. The postings help direct the planning team’s actions and ensure that members are contributing their expertise efficiently and at the right time. Once the planning team has reviewed the documents and decided on the best approach, the plan can be printed and presented to the client.
Please provide the approximate number of customers for this solution: 1
Who are your top three customers?
1. HSBC Bank USA
Once client data is submitted, a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Team site is created for planning and collaboration.
Collect financial information using fact finders supported by Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 forms.
Task pane provides access to additional Web services.
PlanLab Office System
2. AXA Financial, Inc.
3. Nationwide Financial and Nationwide Insurance
Vertical Markets PlanLab Office System is targeted for these vertical markets:
Financial Services
Banking
Capital Markets
Insurance
Market Drivers
The financial services industries are driven by several market conditions:
Strong relationships between the client, advisor, and financial institution lead to long-term customers and more profitable sales.
Financial institutions are under great pressure to increase revenues by streamlining the sales process, reducing the amount of time it takes to generate financial advice, and enhancing relationships with each client.
Data collection is disorganized and primarily manual. Information may be gathered by more than one advisor and submitted to several analysis systems. Much data entry is redundant because many forms collect the same information. These data collection demands reduce advisor time with clients.
Telephone, fax, e-mail, mail, and overnight shipping are inefficient ways to collaborate with planning specialists on individual plans.
Financial advisors may not provide consistent advice across the enterprise. Standardization of analysis and planning methods helps support financial advisors at varying levels of skill and experience, enabling them to build strong client relationships.
Some planning processes, such as estate planning, require the input of licensed professionals. Other financial advisors must have access to specialized experts to provide a comprehensive set of products and services.
Line-of-Business/Horizontal Markets
Sales
Marketing
Key Players
Vice President of Marketing
Vice President of Sales
Sales and Marketing Vice Presidents
Pains for Sales and Marketing VPs include:
Increased testing, compliance, and support costs for multiple advisor tools.
PlanLab Office System
Disparate data analysis systems (with different user interfaces) for different advisor tools.
Time-consuming manual business processes increase the time it takes to deliver results back to consumers, slowly eroding any client enthusiasm for the process.
Consistent advice is difficult to provide without a common planning engine.
Advisors spend too much time behind their desks entering client data and performing administrative tasks rather than spending it in front of the client.
Collaboration with planning specialists and experts is difficult and time-consuming.
Sales and Marketing VP Key Messages:
Increase the time advisors spend with clients by automating the financial sales process and replacing current manual data collection and analysis methods with a single, efficient workflow that reduces administrative tasks and redundant data entry.
Provide advisors and managers across the enterprise with access to the business information they need to do their jobs.
Strengthen client relationships by customizing the planning process based on the client’s financial needs and goals.
Provide a systematic approach to planning so that advisors can apply the firm’s best practices and give superior planning advice regardless of their skill levels and experience.
Streamline the financial sales process by replacing multiple paper forms with a single electronic form that collects client data for multiple uses.
Effectively leverage the skills and expertise of financial specialists during client proposal generation by providing planning teams with a collaborative workspace.
Business ValuePlanLab Office System helps advisors work effectively by giving them tools to collect and analyze client data, facilitate effective collaboration with specialists, and generate financial proposals. PlanLab Office System streamlines administrative tasks so that advisors can spend more time with clients, increasing sales opportunities.
Business Decision Maker Messaging
Increase the time advisors spend with clients by automating the financial sales process: Replace current manual data collection and analysis methods with a single, efficient workflow that reduces administrative tasks and redundant data entry.
Provide advisors and managers across the enterprise with access to the business information they need to do their jobs.
Strengthen client relationships by customizing the planning process based on the client’s financial needs and goals.
Provide a systematic approach to planning so that advisors can apply the firm’s best practices and give superior planning advice regardless of their skill and experience levels.
Streamline the financial sales process by replacing multiple paper forms with a single electronic form that collects client data for multiple uses.
PlanLab Office System
Effectively leverage the skills and expertise of financial specialists in the client proposals by providing advisors with a collaborative workspace.
Use familiar business productivity applications such as Word 2003 and Excel 2003 to reduce the time needed to master PlanLab Office System.
Integrate with Microsoft .NET-connected technologies to support mobile workers so that advisors have access to information anytime, anywhere.
Technical AdvantagesPlanLab Office System delivers a powerful, Web-based financial analysis and workflow solution for financial services enterprises that streamlines the financial sales process end to end. XML-based data collection forms in InfoPath 2003 reduce redundant data entry; team sites enable advisors to collaborate with specialists; and client proposal documents are generated automatically. Client financial information is protected by using Information Rights Management (IRM), a Microsoft Office System technology.
Technical Decision Maker Messaging
Leverage your software investment by using familiar business productivity applications such as Word 2003 and Excel 2003.
Reduce IT costs by providing a single common planning engine and a single data analysis system, reducing the number of systems that must be maintained.
Reduce support costs by replacing multiple tools with a single advisor tool.
Connect your company’s systems by using the Microsoft .NET Framework to extend their value, resulting in less complexity, reduced risk, and lower costs.
Integrate existing Microsoft software and legacy systems and applications into a single environment, leveraging prior software investments.
Position your organization to respond effectively to business growth and changes in the marketplace with the Microsoft .NET Framework and the open, extensible Web services architecture—without ripping out and replacing existing systems.
Provide enterprise-class security to protect your valuable business data and preserve privacy around confidential client information.
Sales StrategiesImpact Technologies targets the Vice President of Sales and the Vice President of Marketing in large enterprises.
Impact Technologies typically starts each engagement with the influential business users who are responsible for evaluating technology or who understand the technology needs of the organization well enough to champion the solution. Typically, this is not the IT manager.
Impact Technologies performs a needs analysis, and then submits a brief follow-up e-mail message, which includes the results, the elevator pitch, and value proposition statements with a call to action. The call to action is typically an invitation to attend an online presentation meeting to experience the solution first hand.
The next step is to generate interest and motivate the individual to request access to the solution for a trial period. After granting access, Impact Technologies aligns the technical support staff to assist the individual during the trial period with regular follow-up contact (weekly or more frequently, as appropriate).
PlanLab Office System
Impact Technologies also:
Commonly arranges an onsite meeting for an in-depth demonstration to key players.
Performs online meeting reviews, training seminars, onsite visits, and conference calls.
Supplies supporting materials such as brochures, presentations, white papers, and sample case studies.
The Impact Technologies sales cycle generally takes four to six months, from first contact to a signed license agreement.
Positioning and Messaging
Go-To-Market Initiatives
Personal Productivity
PlanLab Office System improves individual productivity by replacing multiple paper fact-gathering forms with a single electronic form. Hence, PlanLab Office System eliminates redundant data entry and reduces the likelihood of data entry errors. PlanLab Office System automatically creates and posts client proposal documents to the planning site as Word 2003 and Excel 2003 documents, eliminating hours of work.
Business Process Automation/Integration
Leveraging BizTalk Server 2004 (“Jupiter”), PlanLab Office System automates previously manual processes, reducing dependence on human action and expediting the flow of information. Using Windows SharePoint Services and business rules in BizTalk Server, PlanLab Office System automatically creates a client planning site for team collaboration containing announcements, client documents, tasks and assignments, and related links.
Communication and Collaboration
Leveraging Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, PlanLab Office System provides a single access point for enterprise information and resources and entry to the PlanLab Office System. PlanLab Office System also creates Windows SharePoint Services workspaces for each client, giving advisors a centralized, collaborative, client-focused location for assigned tasks, planning documents, and links to related resources. Advisors can also view the availability of team members and specialists and can collaborate, holding a discussion of client planning issues by using Microsoft MSN® Messenger.
Messaging
Connected
PlanLab Office System uses standard Web technologies to connect people to information and to one another. PlanLab Office System enables financial advisors to collaborate with specialists, view client information and follow links to related data and information from one location. PlanLab Office System helps to connect people and teams with the information they need in order to more effectively serve clients using a variety of analytical, reporting, and collaboration tools made available through Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Productive
PlanLab Office System eases the administrative load on advisors by reducing the number of forms advisors must complete—automating workflow and generating client financial proposals.
PlanLab Office System
PlanLab Office System enables financial advisors to reduce the time they spend in front of a computer and returns financial assessments and proposals more quickly, enhancing customer service. Using familiar Microsoft Office System programs and standard Web technologies, enhanced with financial analysis, research, and reporting capabilities, advisors can serve clients more effectively, offer more financial products, and close more sales. Leveraging Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, PlanLab Office System accelerates the success of teams by automatically creating a collaborative work space. This lets advisors get to work right away on client cases and enhance customer satisfaction by returning proposals in a timely manner.
Best Economics
PlanLab Office System lets organizations increase the business value of existing investments in people, skills, business processes, and technology. Workers extend their familiarity with the Microsoft Office System environment to improve the bottom line, needing only minimal support from IT. They make use of advanced features and technologies such as InfoPath 2003 to reduce busywork and strengthen client relationships, while leveraging the organization’s investment in the Microsoft Office System.
Dependability
Impact Technologies Group is an innovator in its field, and has helped to expand the scope of the industry it serves with its deep financial industry expertise. Impact Technologies Group has the knowledge, skills, and experience to deliver PlanLab Office System on the Microsoft platform, including both business and technology consulting services and implementation—either deployment or solution hosting.
Solution DetailPlanLab Office System is a Web-based solution that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office System programs and technologies.
Announcements display an immediate overview of results.
Documents are created based on the client’s financial needs and goals.
Tasks are created and assigned based on the client’s planning needs.
Presence of team members facilitates real-time collaboration.
Links are added based on the anticipated resources needed.
Client data is collected by way of an InfoPath 2003 form which is transformed into an XML document compatible with Impact’s Financial Analysis Web service. When a financial advisor
PlanLab Office System
selects a Submit command on the form, the data is submitted to BizTalk Server 2004, which converts the XML information into map data based on rules defined by the enterprise.
Impact’s Financial Analysis Web service performs calculations, bundles the XML results with a Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME) attachment Impact’s Financial Analysis Web service performs calculations, bundles the XML results with a Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME) attachment in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), and sends the response back to BizTalk Server. Based on business rules set up to respond to client needs and financial goals, BizTalk Server then sets the next steps:
BizTalk Server routes the data to the appropriate systems for data analysis.
BizTalk Server and Windows SharePoint Services create a workspace site for the specific client, add an announcement of the data analysis results, and post the content.
Depending on the specific rules, BizTalk Server assigns team members who are needed for supervision or expertise, identifies and assigns tasks to complete the planning process, and adds related links to the workspace.
BizTalk Server returns the workspace link to the InfoPath 2003 form so that an advisor can go straight to the newly created site.
On the site, team members can note the real-time presence of each member and access relevant links to information resources and MSN Messenger for discussion of client planning issues. The links are dynamically created based on the client’s specific financial goals.
Word 2003 support for XML helps advisors create customized documents from the financial analysis results, with Information Rights Management (IRM) technology enabled to restrict document editing to approved sections. Word 2003 documents include a financial analysis client presentation, a planning services cover letter, and a financial analysis data report.
PlanLab Office System and the Microsoft Office System
Using SharePoint Portal Server 2003, financial advisors access enterprise information and resources, including PlanLab Office System, by means of a single entry point. PlanLab Office System quickly builds XML-based data entry forms from Impact Technologies schemas and then collects client data on an InfoPath 2003 form, which transforms into an XML document.
PlanLab Office System
Excel 2003 performs calculations and displays the large result set for additional analysis. PlanLab Office System takes advantage of Word 2003 support for XML to create customized documents for the calculations and analysis of the client data. To protect sensitive client information and internal correspondence, IRM is applied to the documents.
Windows SharePoint Services provides workspaces for each client, giving advisors a centralized, collaborative, client-focused location for assigned tasks, planning documents, and links to related resources. Web services display tasks, events, links and documents for team members, and the presence information that is displayed in Windows SharePoint Services workspaces shows the availability of team members for assistance or collaboration.
PlanLab Office System and InfoPath 2003
InfoPath 2003, built on industry-standard XML, is an information-gathering program for information workers in any industry. InfoPath makes it easy to design and implement rich, dynamic forms that directly connect people to line-of-business applications and business processes. Following an efficient and flexible information-gathering process, workers can more effectively share, reuse, and repurpose data and information throughout their team or organization, improving collaboration and decision-making.
Featuring a flexible object model, a drag-and-drop design environment, and rich editing controls, InfoPath 2003 enables developers to create solutions quickly without having to perform custom coding. It also provides a script editor and other tools for those who want to create more complex solutions. This flexibility lets developers create, implement, and deploy solutions incorporating InfoPath quickly and easily. They can integrate the solutions with a variety of servers and Web services.
Impact Technologies Group’s PlanLab Office System uses XML schema-aware capabilities to quickly build data entry forms from Impact Technologies schemas. Client data is collected on an InfoPath 2003 form, which transforms into an XML document.
Products
PlanLab Office System uses the following Microsoft® products and technologies:
Microsoft Office System Programs:
Microsoft Office Word 2003
Microsoft Office Excel 2003
Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003
Microsoft Office System Server Products:
Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server 2003
Other Microsoft Office System Technologies:
Information Rights Management (IRM)
Collaboration features
Other Microsoft Products and Technologies:
Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services
Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000
PlanLab Office System
Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003
Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004
Partner products
Financial Canvas -- Financial Canvas lets advisors draw financial scenarios and develop planning strategies right in front of a client. With Financial Canvas, advisors can replace their legal pad with a dynamic and professional solution designed for financial sales. Financial Canvas helps advisors get straight to the point without spending a lot of time entering data. Results are quick, and clients are motivated to take action in a single visit.
PlanLabX3 –PlanLabX3 delivers Web-based planning power for single-need transactional sales, comprehensive planning, and fee-based planning services. Intuitive features make it easy to collect and analyze client data, motivate clients to action and monitor their progress.
Third-Party Products
PlanLabX3 and the PlanLab Office System use third-party Web services to integrate current college cost data from Thomson Peterson’s, and stock, mutual fund and foreign currency exchange data from Thomson Financial.
ServicesImpact Technologies Group provides business and technical consulting related to the implementation of PlanLab Office System, including:
Determination and application of business rules specific to a client institution
Application of the compliance layer
Branding of the fact finders
Impact Technologies Group fully supports implementation of PlanLab Office System, from initial setup to deployment or hosting. In addition, Impact Technologies Group offers subscription models to support its clients for both PlanLabX3 and the PlanLab Office System. These subscription options offer the benefit of automatic product and tax-law updates, including semi-annual work groups.
Extensibility
PlanLab Office System can be combined with other Impact Technologies financial planning tools such as PlanLabX3 and Financial Canvas to further enhance the sales and financial planning environment for both advisors and clients.
PlanLab Office System integrates with Microsoft .NET-connected technologies to support mobile workers so that advisors have access to information anytime, anywhere.
Solution Pull-Through
An implementation of PlanLab Office System promotes the following Microsoft® products:
Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server 2003
Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003
Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000
PlanLab Office System
Microsoft Office System programs, including Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office Word 2003, and Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003
Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004
Reference Stories
HSBC Bank USA, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc.
Primary Contact: Peter Ahrens, VP, Brokerage Division
Phone: (716) 841-5783
Email: [email protected]
Addresss: 1 HSBC CenterBuffalo, NY 14240
Microsoft District: Banking
Additional InformationWeb site listing for products, services, client list, etc: may be found at www.advancedimpact.com
© 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Microsoft, BizTalk, InfoPath, MSN, the Office logo, SharePoint, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.