Reliant General is a fast-growth company -- it's made the Inc. 500 twice, as #341 in 1998 and #417 in 1999. And Dodds is all for using the newest technology to keep his company growing at a rapid pace. So in 1997 he hired information-services director Cary White to help him do just that.
When White, 32, joined the company, he took one look at the exorbitant phone bill and told Dodds that the company could eliminate most of it by letting the telecommuters connect over the Internet. Dodds liked the idea but knew there had to be a catch. "He's a very sharp guy when it comes to technology," White says with a laugh. "Almost too smart for his own good."
The catch, White responded, lay in the open nature of the Internet. Essentially, the Internet is a very large collection of routers that are wired to one another. When you send a packet of data into cyberspace, it wanders, asking at each router, "Have you seen this IP address?" If the answer is no, the packet moves on to the next router.
However, nobody should trust that every router on the Internet will simply shoo data packets along. Hackers can put tools, called "sniffers," on those routers and use them to peek inside every packet of data that comes along. If a packet's contents or destination seems juicy enough, the sniffers can read everything inside.
An extra layer of worry exists for Dodds and his colleagues working in California's auto industry: 11 years ago actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by a stalker who obtained her address from the state Department of Motor Vehicles. (Since then, California has tightened its DMV privacy laws.) Not surprisingly, Dodds is passionate about the need to protect his customers. "Information for us is a trust, and we can't give it away, and we can't let anybody get it," he says. "We're talking about where they live, what cars they drive, where they work, the children that drive in the household, their driving records, their claims history -- it's very similar to credit information. It's very private."
For White, simply using the wide-open Internet was out. So he called in a local consultant, Paradise Technology, which built a virtual private network. At the time, VPNs were a fresh concept, and few companies of any size had tried them out. The VPN creates a tunnel of sorts between the Reliant General network and telecommuters' computers, shielding its content from the view of the myriad routers along the way.
Axent Technologies' PowerVPN was one of the first of its kind on the market, so Paradise chose it for Reliant General. In addition, Reliant General purchased Axent's Defender product to authenticate users on its dial-up lines.
The system works this way: Telecommuters like Reliant policy underwriter Mike Lemieux connect to the Internet through a cable modem or a dial-up ISP. Lemieux, who works full-time from his home in El Cajon, Calif., clicks on an icon to start his session with Reliant General. Lemieux's request then passes through several stages.
First, the firewall lets it through only if it is a request for a VPN session on the Axent machine. Anyone -- even an authorized user like Lemieux -- who tries to bypass that machine and connect directly to the corporate server will be blocked by the firewall. Approved requests for VPN sessions make it to the next stage: authentication by the Defender hardware. Lemieux enters his user ID and, just as he would at an ATM machine, types in a personal identification number. But in addition, using that PIN and secret data stored on Lemieux's hard drive, the system creates a onetime password that allows him to access it. This two-level authentication means that someone would have to know Lemieux's password and use his computer in order to impersonate him and gain access to the corporate server.
When Defender gives the go-ahead to Lemieux's session, the PowerVPN establishes a secure tunnel that keeps all transmissions out of harm's way. In addition, it encrypts the contents. Once the secure connection is established, Lemieux logs in to the corporate server -- using yet another password -- and begins working on applications just as if he were on the network in the office. So far the system has worked so well that Reliant General uses the VPN not just for its own telecommuters but also for approved outsiders, like insurance-claims reps.
Installing the system for about 25 telecommuters cost Reliant General about $20,000. Given a yearly savings of $100,000 on the phone bill, "it was pretty clear-cut, pretty much a slam-dunk decision," says chief financial officer Greg Goodrich.
Instant reassurance: Joseph Rosmann guarantees that the children's records are shielded from harm.
According to Dodds, the phone-bill savings haven't been the only gain. He says telecommuters' productivity has increased sharply -- a phenomenon supported by a new poll conducted by the International Telework Association & Council, which found that nearly half of the telecommuters surveyed felt they were more productive working at home, while less than 10% thought they were less productive. According to Dodds, underwriters who used to process about 70 applications a day in the office are now doing at least 100 a day working at home. And giving a staffer time off to attend a school play no longer costs the company a small fortune.
Bedside Manner
If you think that storing kids' immunization records doesn't sound like a business bonanza, then you haven't been talking with Joseph Rosmann.
Rosmann's soft-spoken manner belies his passion about his Internet start-up, HealthRadius. The company -- Rosmann's obsession since he launched it in 1996 -- will soon make many millions of dollars from its Web-based repository of children's vaccination records, he explains in measured tones. Doctors, he says, have free access to the records. Public-health agencies pay a fee to access the records of children in their area. Health plans pay $1 a child for basic data and as much as $4 a child for more complete records. Individuals, through their employers or insurers, can access their own children's records for a family subscription fee of $15 a year.
