Lenox Insurance Case Study

Lenox Insurance Company is an insurance company that relies heavily on independent agents to sell their policies.  In order to improve its chances, the company is focused on improving distribution by providing the agents with the proper tools to get fast, reliable information that would allow them to close a sale in Lenox’s favor instead of its competitors'.  James Bennett, the CEO of Lenox Insurance, hired Diane Sullivan as the new CIO in order to bring Lenox up to date in the digital era.  For three years, Diane accomplished the tasks given to her by updating applications, bringing in technologies, and revamping the organization's information services infrastructure.  Most important, she successfully envisioned and built Lifexpress, a software package that would allow agents to match policies with consumer's financial profiles and expedite the processing time, or so she thought.  As the project was nearing fruition, Sullivan realized how vague her role had been as Clay Fontana, Lenox’s chief financial officer, started to hold her liable for the results, in addition to the implementation, associated with the project.  To Fontana and other executives, these results became especially essential after two competitors launched superior projects in a smaller time frame as compared to Lenox.

Everyone at Lenox is responsible for assuring technology success within the organization.  This can be done by conducting a needs analysis at the beginning of the project that involves representatives from various departments.  This allows a complete picturization of the problem by synthesizing various points of views while keeping within the resource constraints and problem scope at hand.  In turn, this allows information services specialists to visualize possible solutions and provide an atmosphere of support inside the organization for the new technology.  (Since each department has had their say, the implemented technology will be better received and more effective as...