Mobiliar – founded in 1826 in Bern – is Switzerland’s oldest private insurance company and one of the three largest insurers in the country. Around 1.5 million customers entrust the firm with their insurance. One of Mobiliar’s strengths is its decentralized structure. Around 80 general agencies throughout the country ensure customer proximity and local expertise. With over 4,000 employees, the Mobiliar group posted an impressive result of CHF 331.3 million in 2011, significantly exceeding average growth in the sector. Mobiliar, which is a cooperative, ensures its customers benefit from its success. This is a longstanding tradition. Mobiliar has repaid its customers over CHF 1 billion since the 1940s.
In 2009, Mobiliar defined its key system requirements under the leadership of Rolf Buess, Head of Marketing Support: “We wanted to manage all media assets, such as images, logos and advertisements etc., centrally on a new system platform and to make them available to a wide range of user groups, such as employees, service providers, Mobiliar agencies and partner companies, etc.” The creation of a central cockpit was required via which all 180 Mobiliar agencies in Switzerland could produce print publications, advertisements and job ads easily, efficiently and via drag and drop on a standardized, web-based system and send them for printing via Web2Print. Finally, the firm also wanted a standard solution, which could be upgraded modularly on one hand, and developed, implemented and supported by a local partner on the other. It sought a partner which “understood its requirements, possessed many years of extensive expertise in the implementation of publishing projects and could offer long-term support and customer care.”
Roger Zwahlen, Head of DTP, describes the situation before the introduction of censhare as unsatisfactory. Other digital asset management solutions were being used but did not meet Mobiliar’s requirements. Rolf Buess concedes that “the production of printed documents and communications material was previously rather disorganized” as cooperation between various authors and editors was “uncoordinated”.
Buess added: “censhare has of course ensured that these processes are now well structured.” Roger Zwahlen also points out that: “the working processes have changed dramatically. The department’s communication and the storage of data have improved enormously and the uncontrolled growth of digital data no longer exists.”
censhare enables the general agencies to now create their own advertisements, brochures and advertising material with web-based clicks. This system is highly standardized but customized to meet the requirements of each branch and agency. Isabelle Murer, a DTP specialist at Mobiliar, explained how easily the general agencies can create advertisements, for example, with censhare:
"The general agencies log in, […] click on web to print in the menu and create a new document there. They select the template […] and put their own subject onto the background. […] They can also change the address, […] and update the whole thing in order to view the finished document. When everything is OK and they are happy with it, they can export it from censhare as a ready-for-print PDF and save the file where they like."
The Head of Marketing Support summed up the major benefits of the solution: “Obviously the transparency and the structured processes. […]. These were the key requirements for us and one of the main reasons for making this investment.” Speed and efficiency are other key factors: “The general agencies quickly obtain the printed material required which they can access interactively.”
Following the introduction of the digital asset management system, which is used to manage over 13,000 assets, such as images, logos, texts, templates and advertisements, the integration of all means of communications is planned for the future to finally ensure “transparent production” here too.
