Frederick Mutual Insurance Sees Improved Productivity and Efficiency with MaaS360

By Christopher Mohr
TMCnet Contributing Writer

Frederick, Md.-based Frederick Mutual Insurance Company recently changed to a more mobile IT architecture with its deployment of Fiberlink's MaaS360 solution. So far, the benefits have been impressive, including $50,000 in savings on server costs, faster claims processing, better customer service and more timely reports to management.

Fiberlink, based in Blue Bell, Pa., develops enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions that run on the cloud. As its name suggests, MaaS360 is a software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) solution. Companies subscribe on a pay-as-you-go basis to MaaS360 for managing mobile devices within their network.

MaaS360 is scalable between 10 and 10,000 users, according to Fiberlink's website. Pricing is available based on the number of users or as a flat fee for an unlimited number of users. It supports bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments that are becoming more popular in larger businesses.

A trial version of MaaS360 is available from Fiberlink's website. Once evaluators create an account, they have free access to the service for 30 days.

When a company signs up for a cloud-based solution, whether it's a VoIP PBX (News - Alert) system or a SaaS solution, many tasks traditionally performed by IT departments get shifted to the cloud provider. The vendor is effectively telling the company, its customer, to 'leave the driving to us.'

This can lead to huge potential savings for customers since there is no need to worry about labor intensive tasks like upgrades or backups. Technology, reliability, expertise and scalability allow the cloud provider to manage 100 customers' enterprise systems much more efficiently than the 100 customers managing their enterprise systems would do on their own.

Frederick Mutual saved $50,000 in the costs associated with running a server-based system, thanks to choosing MaaS360. The company also switched from BlackBerry (News - Alert) devices that they issued to letting employees use personal smartphones in a BYOD environment subject to MaaS360's controls. Laptops were replaced with iPads, resulting in faster document processing, getting information on demand and faster reporting to management.

Mobile technology and cloud-based computing are having a profound effect on companies and IT departments as we know them. Thirty years ago, software vendors sought to create the killer application. Today the objective is to get companies to all but eliminate their own IT departments. If the cost savings and improved efficiency that Frederick Mutual has seen so far with MaaS360 is typical of what a company can expect when moving to cloud technology, then it would be the height of folly to not make such a move.