Social Network Fosters Customer Collaboration

Move over Facebook, our insurance clients have their own social network. Launched in September 2008, WikonnecT is a global business-to-business networking site for the insurance industry that lets CSC clients get the latest product updates and collaborate in real time.

Using interactive features common to Web sites like MySpace and Amazon, WikonnecT gives our clients and employees a 24x7 collaborative space for solving business problems. Clients can access the latest information about CSC's business and technology initiatives, client projects, ongoing programs and industry issues and interact directly with CSC developers and each other.

Getting personal

WikonnecT is a personalized venue where community members share their experiences and ideas for enhancing CSC's software and addressing common industry problems. Although CSC's insurance clients compete fiercely in the marketplace, they typically work together on issues such as regulatory requirements and business and technology standards. "Collaboration is the key," says Carolyn Emerson, a CSC business architect on the WikonnecT development team. "The main focus of WikonnecT is to give our clients a collaborative environment around the clock."

			Related Information: Watch a video about WikonnecT. Learn more about our Insurance practice. Read about the 2009 Chairman's Award for Excellence. Download a PDF of this story. Contact us.

The site meets the needs of CSC's diverse client base of property and casualty (P&C) carriers and life insurance and annuities companies. When the site launched, specialized users' communities quickly sprang up, and within the first nine months, WikonnecT counted more than 7,000 registered users from nearly 500 companies. In addition to traditional message boards, users can take advantage of RSS feeds, wikis and blogs, view members' photos, and read members' profiles. The site boasts more than 100 interest-based communities.

Emerson says, "WikonnecT really opens the door for our clients to talk to us, talk to each other and for us to talk to each other within CSC." A wide variety of communities are provided for client interactions, including developer and architecture spaces where clients can share best practices and access product documentation.

WikonnecT is being recognized by clients as an innovative platform that gives CSC a true point of differentiation in the insurance industry. For Mike Paulin, business services manager at Michigan Insurance Company, the site supports ongoing collaboration on CSC's POINT IN, a leading policy administration system for the P&C industry. "It is exciting to see CSC moving so quickly on adding enhancements and features to WikonnecT," says Paulin. "All of us in the network can take advantage of these tools to improve our community, enhance our working groups and communicate with both other customers and the POINT IN Operational Board."

WikonnecT also gives clients a view into CSC's business they've never had before. Members have the ability to see who works on which accounts and in which product areas, so they can quickly find members who can assist them. Users can also share and discuss the implementation of software, business issues or process change.

Quick turnaround

Getting WikonnecT up and running quickly was a big challenge to the CSC development team. They built the site in less than six weeks using an open source framework and widgets provided by Liferay, a company specializing in open source portal and social collaboration software. The site runs on hardware supplied by Sun Microsystems, a longtime CSC alliance partner.

The development team targeted the WikonnecT launch for CSC's 2008 Fall Connect conference for P&C insurance clients. "Our biggest challenge was the timeline," says CSC Architect Bob Evans. To get the ball rolling, his team started using WikonnecT from Day 1. "Since we were such a geographically dispersed group, we wanted to put WikonnecT into practice right from development," Evans says.

The agile development framework allowed new features to be added quickly. For instance, on Day 2 of launch week, a client suggested that e-mail addresses be available to enable direct member contact. That feature was deployed the next day.

The site has been successful in shifting the focus of customer interaction from person-to-person to community-to-community. Evans says, "WikonnecT demonstrates the application of social networking in a context that enables and empowers emergent behavior with CSC's solution groups, client communities and any combination of the two. The instant collaboration brings transparency and opportunities for clients to directly influence ongoing projects."

For their efforts, key members of the WikonnecT development team were honored with the 2009 Chairman's Award, CSC's highest form of technical recognition. In addition to Emerson and Evans, award winners include Divya Khanna and Medha Sutaria. The Chairman's Award is overseen by the Leading Edge Forum, which provides CSC clients with a knowledge base and global network of innovative thought leaders.