View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2015/07/15/375049.htm

JLT Australia Deploys NetSuite Cloud Solution to Run Entire Business Life Cycle

Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) Australia, a subsidiary of the London-based insurance, reinsurance and employee benefits firm, has deployed NetSuite OpenAir cloud professional services automation (PSA) solution to run the entire business life cycle of its consulting practice, according to a statement issued by NetSuite.

NetSuite’s PSA solution handles JLT’s activities ranging from project management, resource management, time-and-expense management, to project accounting.

JLT Australia replaced six disparate Microsoft Access and Excel databases with a single unified solution from NetSuite OpenAir, providing more than 150 project managers and consultants – located in more than 20 offices around the country and engaged in hundreds of projects at any given time – with real-time visibility and anytime, anywhere access to the tools and information they need, according to NetSuite.

Since making the switch in 2011, JLT Australia has seen increased productivity, reduced operational costs and dramatically improved operational efficiency, the announcement said.

Along with traditional insurance products, Sydney-based JLT Australia offers insurance-related risk management, health and safety, rehabilitation and injury management, business continuity and loss adjustment services to public and private sector organizations.

As its practice grew, JLT Australia was struggling to manage complex information on projects, clients and personnel in disparate Microsoft Access and Excel databases, NetSuite said.

Lack of visibility into key business information complicated pricing decisions and forced the company into guesswork regarding decision-making and future planning, the PSA provider said. In addition, ad hoc processes and multiple systems resulted in inefficiencies in time-and-expense reporting and costly manual work for consultants and administrative personnel, without a systematic way to manage the complex services business.

In 2010, JLT Australia identified PSA technology as an ideal solution to overcome its challenges. After reviewing several solutions in the market, JLT Australia selected NetSuite OpenAir for the platform’s ability to introduce visibility and efficiency across its entire services lifecycle, from project bid to bill, NetSuite said.

“NetSuite OpenAir has given us a lot more transparency and enabled us to engage with clients in a more structured way in terms of milestones, project and resource management, while capturing the time-and-expense we incur,” said Clinton Wright, national operations manager for JLT Australia.

NetSuite said it provides JLT Australia with key features and benefits including:

• Productivity increase and cost savings – The productivity of JLT Australia’s project managers and consultants has increased 20 percent since switching from on-premise software to cloud-based NetSuite OpenAir in 2011. It has also saved AU$200,000 per year in personnel costs by eliminating the need to manage time and expense in multiple databases.
• Real-time project visibility – With comprehensive visibility across all projects, JLT Australia can adjust pricing models for optimal profitability, as well as assign the right personnel to the right projects.
• Enhanced project delivery – JLT Australia can now outline a staffing and milestone roadmap to clients for long-term engagements that has proven valuable in building client confidence and winning new and repeat business.
• Mobility – NetSuite OpenAir Mobile for iPads and iPhones enables consultants in the field to improve productivity and help accelerate billing and cash flow by entering time and expense as or soon after it’s incurred while they’re on the road.
• Improved service delivery – JLT Australia can improve service delivery effectiveness and client satisfaction with the unified NetSuite OpenAir solution to manage tasks, timeframes, milestones and resources.
• Rich customization capabilities – NetSuite OpenAir’s rich customization capability helps to enable JLT Australia to tune the solution to the unique requirements of its loss-adjusting line of business, which investigates, adjusts and manages complex or contentious losses so that informed decisions may be made on the resolution of an insurance claim. As a cloud-based system, all of those customizations carry forward automatically.
• Improved invoicing processes – Workflow-driven invoicing from NetSuite OpenAir to back-end financials helps to eliminate manual ad hoc processes and alleviates problems with data inconsistency.

“We’re now making decisions with timely and accurate information, whereas in the past we had to make decisions with guesswork in the first instance, or it took too long to get the information we needed,” said Wright.

According to Mark Troselj, vice president and general manager for ANZ at NetSuite, “Cloud PSA technology is relatively new to the Australian market, with JLT Australia being an enthusiastic, early adopter. NetSuite OpenAir is designed specifically for professional services companies to enable their consultants to access the full functionality of the solution, whether they are out in the field or anywhere in the world. Not only can companies manage their full project lifecycle in real-time, but they gain complete business visibility that can only be achieved using the cloud.”

Source: NetSuite Inc.