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October 17th - 19th,
1999
"CNA's E-Commerce Head Says: Break Down the Internal Walls"
Hamilton started his online marketing career at Federal Express, where he worked for 15 years before joining CNA in 1996. Hamilton, speaking at the "Continuing the E-volution," A.M. Best Co.'s 12th annual insurance and technology conference, said the grounding he received at Federal Express--a place that was "passionate about customers and drenched in technology"--taught him to rethink established conventions about marketing and technology. Too often at insurance companies and elsewhere, technology and marketing units battle over who has final say over what's presented online and how interaction takes place. Comparing a company to a ship, Hamilton said marketers think of themselves as being on the bridge, while technologists think of themselves as running the engine room. Marketers are trained to think in terms of advertising, market share and perception. Meanwhile, technologists often think too narrowly in terms of functionality. Instead, they should be thinking more alike, using terms that describe items such as "customer behavior" and "closure," Hamilton said. "Too often, marketing guys think of IT guys as enablers," Hamilton said. "But the IT guys think to themselves: 'If my stuff doesn't work, anything you do doesn't matter.'" The Internet is changing that paradigm. "It's not about printing brochures--it's about getting people to do business with you," Hamilton said. "The Web is granular; it's disappearing and becoming part of what we do." Dividing functions into marketing and technology also is giving way to integrated teams where the focus is on giving customers exactly what they're seeking. Hamilton came to CNA because he hoped to become part of the revolution in financial services created by online development. Some industries, such as trucking and delivery, have been radically transformed by online communications, but the insurance industry is in what Hamilton described as the "second phase" of online development. The first involved establishing basic Web sites. The second is the development of online transactions and the growth of aggregator sites that sell insurance on behalf of carriers. But even Hamilton wouldn't predict what's ahead, given the recent breakthroughs in broader delivery systems and new standards for wireless communications. "This technology is morphing so fast, you couldn't do a five-year plan," he said. By Lee McDonald |
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Breaking Down the Walls Between Marketing
and Technology: 
The new world of online business is erasing many of
the old distinctions between marketing and technology--and creating unnecessary
stress among marketing departments and technology units of companies that can't
adapt to those changes, said Robert Hamilton, CNA Financial Corp.'s vice
president for electronic commerce.