Best Financial Services Interactive Application

In September 2008, Manulife launched a Retirement Solutions Site designed for advisors. A key component of this site was based on a concept called “Product Allocation”. Product Allocation, in simple terms, is a different way to look at your portfolio. Instead of looking at your portfolio from an asset point of view (ie fixed income and equities) looking at your portfolio from a product perspective (ie mutual funds, GMWBs, or annuities). In order to help advisors explain this concept to their clients, Manulife looked to BlueRush to address both their UI and technology needs. From a creativity standpoint, BlueRush needed to make it easy for advisors to use the tool and present results to their clients. From a technology perspective, BlueRush had to ensure that 1000s of scenarios could run in the background without service interruption to the client. To meet these objectives, BlueRush sought out to design a calculator workflow that leveraged other financial calculator design concepts (so advisors did not have to face a steep learning curve), but also to develop a UI that engaged the user visually. To that end, BlueRush broke the calculator into 4 main sections based on the process of an advisor-client meeting. It also used dynamic Flash graphing to generate quick, user-friendly on-screen results, as well as interactive slide bars to help client test various Product Allocation options. The result has been extremely successful with over 5,000 advisors integrating the tool into their client review process.

Contributors:

BLUERUSH

Location: Canada