Ventiv Technology

360º | Aon eSolutions 7 "IT SAVES US A HUGE AMOUNT OF TIME DISCUSSING THINGS OR LOOKING INTO THINGS THAT WE DON'T NEED TO. IN THE PAST, WE'D SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH OUR VENDORS AND WITH OUR OPERATIONS LOOKING AT REPORTS OR PAST METRICS AND ANALYZING THEM TO DEATH," SHAUGHNESSY SAID. Do not consider which metrics will be important from a risk management perspective. Instead, ask which metrics will be crucial from an operations point of view—for the "people who actually get the product out the door," according to Shaughnessy. EVALUATE THE OPERATION Users enjoy the same benefits of efficiency and confidence from a well-built dashboard. Users know, understand and trust the metrics behind Textron's dashboard, so they don't "analyze it to death" either. They simply can look at the handful of metrics that matter most to them and follow the color-coding for each to know what they're doing well, and what they may need to work on. REMOVE THE GUESSWORK FOR USERS Look only for metrics that will drive activity on the ground and reduce costs in your program. Instead of how fast claims are reported, for instance, Shaughnessy and his team turned to how fast claims are closed. This metric translates to both workers' comp and disability, and it relates directly to costs. Other metrics used by Textron include open claims, days lost, days lost per employee, and two to three others. Discovering and relying on only essential data points—perhaps just a handful—can result in confidence in risk management's ability to track what matters, and frees the risk management team from second-guessing, wheel- spinning and wasted time. NARROW DOWN WHAT WORKS For Shaughnessy and Textron, these considerations even influenced how to define "cost." Instead of expressing raw costs, he found, looking at cost per employee or cost per man hour better captured what operations needed. " IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO TIME AND COST—IN GENERAL—HOW DO I LOOK AT WHAT METRICS IMPACT TIME AND COST?" " IT'S ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS. THEY WANT TO KNOW, IS MY COST GOING UP OR DOWN? IF IT'S GREEN, GREAT, I'M MOVING ON." from insurance carriers and share them with users. Color-coding in the reports reveal whether they're doing better (green) or worse (red) and direct attention and resources where and when needed. "I can look at my dashboard without even reading the numbers and tell if things are going well or not well. I just look at the colors. And I'm sure the consumers of our dashboards do the same thing," Shaughnessy explained. A MYTH-DEBUNKING DASHBOARD? At heart, the concept behind Textron's successful workers' comp and disability dashboard is simple: Measure and track for actual impact. Yet the example and its lessons could seem contrary to the growing trend of "big data" and common risk management practices. Aren't good risk managers meant to seek and collect ever-increasing amounts of data points? "We have a self-fulfilling prophecy that we need to generate as many metrics as possible just to show every little piece of info and to show how important our programs are," Shaughnessy said. But do users benefit from this? In the Textron system, users can access all the data behind the dashboard and drill down as far as they would like. But for users who want to solely focus on the real risk issues in their operations, they can trust in what's on the dashboard's surface, avoiding the overanalyzing that can be detrimental to efficiency; ease of use; and quick, smart decision-making. After all, isn't that what a dashboard is meant to do?

• Cover