Alliances Between Delco Companies and Software Makers a Sign of the Digital Times

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A man in a business suit with holographic images of the world and people in front of him.
Photo courtesy of FieldService.com.

As the world becomes increasingly digital, more and more business is conducted on smartphones, the preferred medium of millennials.

In a rundown of the region’s key software makers, the Philadelphia Inquirer recently highlighted several alliances that involved Delaware County companies:

Radnor’s Lincoln National and Exton-based iPipeline

The real focus of Lincoln National, a $220 billion-asset firm, is selling life insurance and investments. Largely to rich people, until now.

“The traditional way of purchasing life insurance has been very paper-driven,” Heather Milligan, Lincoln’s senior VP for underwriting and new business, told Inquirer writer Joseph DiStefano. “You sit with your agent. You fill out papers.

“We did a ton of research on how Millennials and GenX people want to do business,” she said. “They are very mobile, very adept at tech.”

So Lincoln had iPipeline, a pioneer in online insurance applications, build an automated underwriting system – TermAccel Level Term Insurance.

That makes it faster and cheaper for Lincoln to sell to more people, said Milligan.

“This allows us to go into the mass market for millennials and GenX,” she said.

Hershey Foods and Newtown Square’s SAP

Drivers and marketers for Hershey Foods know a lot about who buys Dark Special, Kisses, and peanut-butter cups, at what stores, in which seasons.

But food manufacturers still have a tough time juggling production and expiration. Much still goes to waste.

“We have to have the right product, in the right packaging, at the right price point, where people want it,” said Hershey spokeswoman Jennifer Sniderman.” That takes coordination across marketing, sales, finance, supply chain, and customer networks.”

SAP sold Hershey its S/4 HANA platform, which the company says joins internal data, social media, outside weather and traffic reports, and other predictive and analytical info, in clear mobile formats.

Citizens Bank and Radnor’s Relay Network

America “is in a customer-service crisis,” said Matt Gillin. To speed users past voicemail hell and portal password amnesia, Gillin’s Relay Network offers “secure customer messaging.”

Two decades after the internet and email became ubiquitous, “80 to 90 percent of communication is still by phone,” said Gillin.

When a customer signs up for a client’s service, “we send notices via text to get them started. The key is that in the message we have a parallel system, a secure system, going into that private, Twitter-like feed. It has the customer’s brand on it, with all the customer communications together.”

Relay claims more than 40 corporate clients. Citizens Bank uses Relay for its fast-growing, $1.5 billion student-loan refinancing program.

Click here to read more about these alliances in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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