AXA UK, Fidelity and Thrivent join the Digital Workplace Group as latest new members

3 April 2013, New York and London.

Three major financial services companies are accelerating their intranet performance by joining the world’s leading intranet benchmarking organization.

AXA UK, Fidelity Investments and Thrivent Financial are the latest financial services organizations to become members of the Digital Workplace Group (DWG) in a move that underlines the importance of intranet best practice and measurement to the financial sector.

• AXA UK specializes in wealth management, insurance and healthcare products. It is part of the AXA Group, which is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with more than 163,000 employees serving 102 million clients in 57 countries.
• Founded in 1946, Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s leading providers of financial services offering investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and many other financial products and services to more than 20 million individuals and institutions as well as through 5,000 financial intermediary firms.
• Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a faith-based, not-for-profit membership organization. With 2.5 million members, it is the largest fraternal benefit society in the US. Thrivent’s mission-driven business model makes it a slight peculiarity on the Fortune 500 list, where it held the number 332 spot in 2012.

“IBF has always supported the intranet development programmes of the world’s major banks, insurers and financial sector names. The arrival of these diverse new members strengthens our decade-strong knowledge base across the sector and extends it dynamically,” says Paul Miller, CEO and Founder of the Digital Workplace Group and CEO of the Digital Workplace Group.

DWG’s other financial services members include Aviva, Charles Schwab, Citi, ING, Lloyds Banking Group, NFU Mutual, PNC, Prudential UK, Rabobank, Schroders and Standard Chartered Bank.

Angela Pohl, Managing Director of IBF explains: “Managing intranets in a highly regulated industry such as the financial sector can present special hurdles. For instance, how do you balance the adoption of popular new ‘social’ tools with essential regulatory safeguards? IBF offers a strictly confidential setting in which companies like this can share insights with others facing the same challenges, allowing them to compare and share strategies based on live demonstrations and insights.”

To facilitate such detailed confidential sharing of best practice for the sector, IBF is planning a special meeting on social media governance in the financial sector in New York City this June.

DWG members can also take advantage of:

• intranet benchmarking across areas of usability, strategy and governance, communication and collaboration, and metrics and performance
• confidential in-person membership meetings held in both Europe and North America
• access to the private IBF Member Yammer group
• a large library of intranet research and resources available only through the DWG member extranet
• IBF Live, a monthly intranet broadcast featuring live tours of leading intranet.

[cta]Video: What does DWG membership look like?[/cta]

About the Digital Workplace Group

DWG is the world leader in intranet benchmarking, research and interaction, with offices in London and New York. Its 80 plus members are all Fortune 500 and equivalent organizations including Amgen, AT&T, Avon, Citi, IKEA, Exxon Mobil, ING and Liberty Mutual.

Since 2002, IBF has been helping member companies maximize the effectiveness and value of their intranets through in-depth intranet evaluations and recommendations, online and in-person peer learning, and a vendor-neutral intranet research programme. DWG members are typically very large companies and public-sector organizations, all of whom agree to strict confidentiality upon joining.

Because DWG is independent of any technology vendor all benchmarking findings and recommendations are impartial.

IBF is part of the Digital Workplace Group.

For more information visit www.digitalworkplacegroup.com or contact:

Angela Pohl
Managing Director
T: +44 (0) 20 7722 8726 | +1 440 488 2377
E: angela.pohl@ibforum.com
@dwg