Birmingham based financial services company, "Wesleyan Assurance Society" has signed a deal to upgrade and expand its current Fairs IFA back office suite of software.
Wesleyan will implement a 50-user licence of the Fairs IFA Manager solution across their office network in the Midlands. Some bespoke services will also be implemented into the system in order for the solution to fully match their requirements.
The sales force has recently become multi-tied, offering value and choice to clients through both Wesleyan manufactured and third party products. Direct distribution of life and general insurance products is also set to grow significantly and a heavy emphasis is being placed on client service, hence the requirement for expansion of the back office capability.
Commenting on the decision Joe Roderick, Company Secretary, from Wesleyan said: "Wesleyan Assurance Society are looking forward to working closely in partnership with Fairs following the decision to upgrade their IFA Manager software. This is a further extension of a well established relationship, providing enhanced flexibility and functionality to existing platforms."
Parallel running with existing software systems will begin soon, followed quickly by phased implementation of the bespoke requirements.
Project Managers from both parties have been assigned and the overall operation is mapped out between now and a scheduled, full go-live date of 1st October 2005. Initial database analysis operations have also been carried out with favourable results indicating that data migration issues will be minimal.
Speaking about the continued partnership with Wesleyan Assurance, Gary Sawyer, Managing Director of Fairs, commented: "Fixed software solutions out of the box are simply not enough for organisations such as Wesleyan. Exact, procedural matches are required and business processes cannot be altered simply to satisfy the requirements of an "off-shelf" software product."
"Wesleyan has always been committed to the use of technology within their business, they have their own in-house IT experts and we are thrilled to be working with them once more. Our experience tells us that having good technical resource at both ends makes the implementation of new systems much more efficient."