In safe hands

With 40 million customers Aflac is an insurance firm with a strong presence in both the US and Japan. Indeed, Aflac Japan insures one in four Japanese households. Closer to home, the business, which sells supplemented health and life insurance, has a presence in all 50 United States and US territories. With this sort of stature in the financial world it’s a safe bet to assume that IT plays a significant role in this company’s global operations. At the helm of technology-related matters in the US is Gerald Shields – Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the Georgia-based organization. With unassuming demeanour this IT chief heads up all aspects of the company’s US information technology division. He also looks after his division’s project management and customer relationship.

With such a wide-reaching level of responsibility, it is little wonder that he was honored as Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT leaders in 2007. During Shields’ tenure Aflac too has been constantly recognized by Computerworld and Information Week 500 as the best places to work in IT. It’s a dynamic and exciting environment but as if often the case at multi-nationals like Aflac – strong organic growth can turn out to be a double-edged sword. “Two challenges that we are facing are keeping up with the tremendous growth of the business and also the war for [IT] talent,” Shields explains during a chat with FST. “To attract and retain top IT talent is a challenge for all progressive, dynamic IT departments.” Indeed, staff shortages in IT is something that is only going to intensify for Shields and his peers, especially at a time when regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), as well as privacy laws, continue to dominate agendas. In fact, Shields argues that regulations to mitigate risk affect almost aspects of his work.

He also notes how the company’s expansion also contributes to the risks and threats that he and his security team faces. “I think we face a tremendous risk due to the growth,” he muses. “More business means more transactions and more data. More transactions mean more horsepower is needed and our applications need to scale to meet business volume. More data causes concern for protection, backup and recovery.”

As you would expect this CIO and his supporting team are constantly on their toes when it comes to potential threats and security risks that the business faces. “We have a very good and active IT Security group that keeps up with trends in the industry and we use standards and outside companies to help evaluate where we are.”

So is he constantly looking over the proverbial shoulder as he tries to stay one step ahead of hackers and fraudsters? Surprisingly, Shields doesn’t fire back a response that makes him come across as a cool customer. In fact, he believes being worried about threats is a positive thing. “I believe having a good sense of paranoia is always good. Believing that there is a threat and believing that you are just one step away from a critical breach is an important perspective to keep you on your toes.” He adds: “If your IT security guy is not paranoid – then you have a problem.” Shields says security is one of the biggest issues that he faces today as CIO due to the vast amount of communications that the business has with the outside world. Also, the way that IT touches about every aspect of a company’s operations today, puts greater pressure on himself and his department.

Inside out
Of course, much of Aflac’s operations take place out in the field with its 69,000 licensed agents spread across the country. Responding to their technology needs, whilst ensuring systems are secure, falls to Shields. To get a feel of their needs on the ground he sent out a number of his IT team out on the road to work with the agents and field management. The goal was to “experience life in their shoes”, as he describes it. “I also spend time with our field force to find out what their issues are, where we can apply technology to make them more productive, where can we help with tools that help them service payroll groups and policy holders.” However, educating the agents on new systems and policies can prove more than a challenge, says Shields.

And his hands-on efforts don’t stop there, though. He also sits in on the organization’s customer call centers to get a feel for what is needed from a technology standpoint. “We then build tools and capabilities to solve and empower the field to handle self service with out having to call the call center for the top eight to 10 types of questions and problems that traditionally required a call.”

Of course, Shields is also responsible for implementing new technologies and IT initiatives. One technology-heavy project has been the positive strides Aflac has made in cutting down on its paperwork. Indeed, approximately 93 percent of the business’ application process is now paperless. “Of that business approximately 70 percent is straight through processed,” says Shields, “It is never handled by humans to drive efficiencies and industry leading responsiveness to the policyholder and the field associates.” Of course, this throws up its own challenges, he remarks: “There are many issues that are a result of the paperless environment. Maintaining all of the 3000 electronic forms, the electronic forms distribution and management is a challenge. From an audit perspective, we maybe a little better because of the electronic filing and version control.”

So will paper eventually become a thing of the past at Aflac?
“We will never be 100 percent paperless,” Shields explains. “There are some cases where there is no business justification. We keep moving more and more to paperless, both from a forms perspective and a reporting perspective based on business evaluation.”

Outlook
So what’s the most important issue for this CIO, going forward? Shields pauses before emphasising his point: “Standards, standards, standards,” he announces. “You can not be all things to all people and control costs. We have implemented standards on platform, on content, on what is delivered on the smaller device verses the laptop. Also, our SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) has been of tremendous value as it has allowed us to share code between the environments.”

It doesn’t stop there though in terms of technology, he says. “We continue to look for all types of wireless technologies for the field. Global positioning Systems (GPS) for route management and aiding the field in efficiently planning sales and service calls is being researched. We continue to push SOA for consistency and productivity. We also are always looking at security and encryption platforms.” So it would be safe bet to assume that this CIO faces a busy year ahead, and who knows, he could continue to scoop more of those awards.

Aflac at a glance

• Founded in 1955 by brothers John, Paul and Bill Amos
• Established as a Fortune 500 company
• Assets at year-end 2007 totaled more than $65 billion
• Annual revenues of more than $15.4 billion
• Offers insurance policies to more than 370,000 US payroll groups

About Gerald Shields
Prior to joining Aflac in 2002 as VP of Information Technology-Enterprises Services, Shields held senior IT positions at Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and served as the chief technology officer and director of information services for LifeWay. He was promoted to his current position in July 2005. Shields holds a bachelor of business administration degree in accounting and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Baylor University.