HawkSoft’s 2021 objectives are comprised by five key pillars: product, people, costumer experience, growth, and operations. While we usually only share the progress of the product pillar through our product roadmap, we realized it might also be meaningful for our customers to join us in celebrating key wins related to other company objectives. It’s inspiring to hear every department’s progress!

 

Product Pillar

Our primary product initiative of transitioning to a cloud-based platform powered by Microsoft Azure is proving to be a marathon and not a sprint. We had anxiously anticipated a 2021 launch, and although we have made significant progress, we will not be finished by year’s end. While we regret to extend the timeline, we are targeting a 2022 availability of our new cloud-powered platform. We are extremely excited about all that we’ve accomplished so far and what the cloud-based platform is going to offer agents. 

In order to share information and be as transparent as possible on our progress, we’ve launched a new webpage to explain HawkSoft 6, our first version that will deploy the power of our cloud-based platform at scale. On the webpage, you’ll find project milestones, timelines, an overview of the differences from current HawkSoft installations and our new cloud-based platform, a comprehensive FAQ, and a Questions box for you to send us questions or concerns you may have.  

In addition, please join us on September 21 at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET for a special webinar about the new HawkSoft 6 that will be powered by the cloud. We’ll discuss our progress on this project and celebrate the milestones we’ve completed and those soon to be achieved. 

 

Other product releases

While most resources have been dedicated to the HawkSoft 6 project, we have launched two major version releases (5.1 and 5.2) with plans for two more this year. A tip of the cap to our Development Team for balancing the workload between our cloud project and regular version releases that still deliver valuable feature enhancements and quality of life improvements like the following:

 

People Pillar

Working remote as a result of the pandemic threw many curveballs for employees, Human Resources, and IT. Our employees dove headfirst into forming a committee that could evaluate the remote working transitions, gather employee feedback, and implement solutions. Our core values were tested and they continued to navigate us through the turbulence. I’m extremely proud to say that our HawkSoft family is stronger and more resilient than ever.

  • HR created innovative ways to recognize employee milestones and achievements in a remote environment.
  • Employee culture and morale was boosted through online games, quizzes, surveys, Questions of the Day through chat, DoorDash lunches, and much more.
  • Our hiring pool is now more expanded by being able to find talent from anywhere in the US due to HawkSoft embracing a remote working environment. We are now 127 strong across 18 states.
  • An intranet Sharepoint website was established to help employees transition to a work-from-home model
  • We will soon know whether we've been awarded our 7th consecutive Oregon Top 100 Workplaces award (last year we ranked at 32!). Our position is determined by an independently administered survey, which employees submit anonymously. 

 

Customer Experience Pillar

Departments have been diligently finding ways to improve training, refine the new agency onboarding and conversion processes, and strengthen customer outreach. A few of their recent wins include:

  • The Client Services Team began offering new customers five additional post-release sessions to enhance training and boost user confidence before agencies go live on our platform.
  • A new Customer Success department prioritizes listening to customers’ feedback and uses proactive outreach to strengthen relationships and further improve retention.
  • HawkSoft Managed Accounting has improved the onboarding period to an average of two weeks.
  • Customer Advisory Boards are active and listening to agencies that are passionate about specific areas of our platform and wish to volunteer their ideas. This has led to invaluable innovation and is forcing HawkSoft to focus on what matters to our agencies.
  • Our new online Help Portal serves HawkSoft customers even better, bringing all HawkSoft resources together into a single help resource. 

 

Growth Pillar 

Though the pandemic has proven very difficult for many industries and companies, I’m humbled to share that HawkSoft witnessed record growth during the past 18 months. We now have our largest employee count in our 26-year history, and we had our strongest financial year in history!

We also added many API Partner integrations to our extended family so our agencies can choose from reputed vendors to extend and customize their Insurtech stacks. Beyond the 15 we’ve already added, another 30 are being evaluated to join our platform.

  

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Operations Pillar

As part of our transition to a cloud-based platform, HawkSoft is also committed to becoming SOC 2 compliant, which ensures the organizational controls and practices of our new cloud platform will continue to effectively safeguard the security of your agency and client data.

Part of this journey to SOC 2 compliance involved establishing a robust intranet Sharepoint website that serves as a way to document our controls, practices, and share valuable resources with our growing employee base.