MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE CO., LTD.

MSI sought to enhance the quality of its business by upgrading its employees' working styles.

MSI operates a global insurance and financial services business. It has a large number of agents and is known for its particularly strong presence in the Asia region. Since 2011, MSI has been actively working to improve how its employees work and has begun constructing an ICT infrastructure to serve as the foundation for that purpose. MSI has achieved a steady stream of successes, an example of which was its being chosen as one of the "Diversity Management Selection 100" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2014.

"Spearheaded by the Human Resources Department, MSI is carrying out its 'Be Professional for All' initiative as an organization-wide effort. The goal is to encourage our employees to become 'true professionals' as we aim to improve each employee's level of growth and motivation, and to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the company as a whole. We have also formulated a strong approach to fostering an awareness of the need to create time in order to continuously undertake new challenges. We understand that, in addition to ICT infrastructure areas such as streamlining and systemizing operations, everyday improvements are very important. One of such improvements was utilizing the web conferencing service that recently replaced our old system." (Mr. Ochi)

MSI had used web conferencing before for communication between departments and offices, and with its agents. There were a number of problems with the system, however, including poor user-friendliness and aging equipment.

"With the previous internal system, we had a limited number of devices that could connect to the network and they could only be connected in certain places (meeting rooms). Something that also became a problem was the slow startup time, which partially owed to how old the equipment was. The web conferencing system we used to communicate with our agents was separate from the internal web conferencing system and few people used it. So we decided that when the support period for the system ended, we would replace it with a new service that was easier to use and that could be used more often." (Mr. Nishimura)

MSI is now using a cloud-based web conferencing service that is easy to use and delivers stable performance.

After a study period lasting approximately one year, MSI decided in April 2014 that it would use Arcstar Conferencing Web Conferencing ("Web Conferencing") from NTT Communications. After advance deployment of the system at select offices, company-wide use of the system began in January 2015.

"Two major reasons why we selected this service were its higher level of stability and greater ease of use compared with the other systems and services that we considered. Because it does not require any special software and is available for use immediately whenever we need it, we decided that this was also an advantage for agent staff as well as participants outside the company." (Mr. Nishimura) In addition to the reasonable cost of the proposal coupled with the extensive record of success and feeling of reliability that comes with NTT Communications, MSI reported that the impressive user support system was a factor in favor of Web Conferencing.

"We expect greater use of web conferencing will result in more inquiries. When we thought about providing support not only for our 20,000 or so employees but also for agents outside the company, there was no way that purely in-house support would suffice. The sophisticated help desk support was thus a key factor behind our decision. " (Mr. Nishimura)

During the period between selecting the service and deploying it company-wide, the service functions and other details were configured to meet MSI's requirements and policies. This was another area where the high support capabilities of NTT Communications were put to use.

"The functions that users would be allowed or not allowed to use were decided in detail based on our company's policies regarding problems such as preventing information leakage, ensuring security and protecting people's portrait rights as their faces are imaged. Although it took time to make specific changes to and test system operation, the assistance provided by NTT Communications was a great help." (Mr. Nishimura)

Web Conferencing was also used to conduct briefings after deploying the system, with a lecturer in Tokyo explaining the use of the service to around 1,000 persons in offices across Japan. This training was essentially completed in seven days, and was highly praised for its convenience and efficiency.

Employees became much more willing to use Web Conferencing and communication was energized.

The shift to Web Conferencing expanded the list of connectable devices to include PCs, tablets, and smartphones, vastly improving on the convenience offered by the previous system environment, where few devices could be connected. MSI can now hold meetings in a more timely manner, and the number of meetings has approximately doubled.

"The previous system required 30 minutes to one hour of preparation prior to a meeting, but now we can get started at a moment's notice. We can feel the benefits everywhere, as it is easier to hold and participate in meetings, and Web Conferencing now supports a broad range of devices. We can connect instantly with offices and agents located far away. In our global operations, we are already using it at our overseas offices. We had a lot of requests from our overseas subsidiaries, so it good that we were able to carry this out. Unlike telephone conferences, no communications charges are incurred, helping us to cut costs." (Mr. Hashimoto)

Being able to instantly share the necessary materials during a meeting is another point that has been rated highly.

"When new materials become necessary during the course of a meeting, we can distribute them right away. The previous system required users to register in advance the materials they wanted to use, so this is a big improvement. Because we can also directly show the movement of the mouse pointer and screen operations, we can now more effectively explain to agent staff how to use the tools, and our operations are proceeding much more smoothly." (Mr. Hashimoto)

MSI is using Web Conferencing not only for meetings but also increasingly for internal training involving several dozen people at a time.

"Previously this kind of training was carried out face-to-face each time, but because we have offices across the country, conducting training on the web has definite advantages in terms of scheduling the training, travel time, and other areas. The chat functions are used effectively, allowing instructors to communicate with one another and participants to ask questions. This kind of internal use is increasing as people become more proficient with the system and gain expertise, and I expect this will allow us to have a better communication with the agent personnel." (Mr. Hashimoto)

In order to actively promote effective ways and specific advantages of using the service, as well as ideas for how it can be used, MSI is also using the service internally for in-house news delievry and on-demand video streaming. By achieving a good combination of web-based communication with conventional face-to-face meetings, MSI is aiming to further raise the quality of employee and agent operations in the future.

"Stimulating our employees and making sure that they can continually accept new challenges is one of our responsibilities in the Personnel Department. Instead of just one-way communication, it is important to ensure that information is correctly understood by the other party. For this reason, we will continue to use trial and error to study how we can make the best use of the ICT infrastructure and tools in the future." (Mr. Ochi)