Workiva Reports Expansion of Wdesk Across Insurance Companies
New uses for Wdesk platform grow as companies seek to mitigate risk and increase productivity
DES MOINES, Iowa, May 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Workiva (NYSE:WK), creator of the Wdesk cloud-based productivity platform for enterprises, announced today at the Global Insurance Symposium that nearly 100 insurance companies are now using Wdesk.
"Wdesk is optimized for the insurance industry, which faces many risks and increasing regulation," said Matt Rizai , Chairman and CEO of Workiva. "Our insurance customers start using Wdesk for one or two business processes. Many now use Wdesk to improve a wide range of processes that relate to compliance and risk reporting."
As reporting requirements increase, insurance companies have found that Wdesk improves accuracy and control in statutory reporting, audited financials and footnotes, product contract filings, Model Audit Rule reports, Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) summary reports and more.
"Oftentimes insurance companies have to report on multiple entities to multiple regulators, using data that is spread across the enterprise that can be mired in old technology and conflicting formats," said Rizai. "Our insurance company customers, including American Equity Investment Life Holding Company and FBL Financial Group Inc., use Wdesk to help streamline and automate the entire process."
"Wdesk has made our lives easier, and the technology works for us across our business," said Steve Harms , Vice President of Financial Reporting and Tax Accounting at American Equity Investment Life Holding Company. "The real-time collaboration, sharing and version-control capabilities have proven invaluable. Wdesk saves us time, money, effort and gives us complete control over the documents from beginning to end."
Key benefits of Wdesk include:
- Control and Accuracy - Data and narratives are linked in Wdesk, allowing for consistency and automatic updates throughout all related documents. Users can control access to that information on a granular level, which improves accuracy and project management and can save hundreds of hours.
- Transparency and Tracking - Wdesk stamps every change so all stakeholders have instant visibility with a dashboard of the entire process. This includes tracking who changed the information and when they changed it, as well as progress by section.
- Certification and Reporting - Wdesk automates certification and sign-offs at every level. Secure e-mails are sent to process and content owners as reviews are scheduled and documents and reports are approved.
"We see great potential in our early stages of further expanding Wdesk across insurance companies," added Rizai.
About Workiva
Workiva (NYSE:WK) created Wdesk, a cloud-based productivity platform for enterprises to collect, link, report and analyze business data with control and accountability. Thousands of organizations, including over 65% of the Fortune 500, use Wdesk for risk, compliance or management reporting. Wdesk proprietary word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications are integrated and built upon a data management engine, offering synchronized data, controlled collaboration, granular permissions and a full audit trail. Wdesk helps mitigate enterprise risk, improve productivity and give users confidence to make decisions with real-time data. Workiva employs more than 950 people with offices in 15 cities. The company is headquartered in Ames, Iowa. For more information, visit workiva.com.