Blaise Beaulieur

Blaise Beaulieur, assistant director for corporate planning at Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., describes his company's approach to IT portfolio management as an overarching process that controls "how we prioritize and select our projects, how we monitor and adjust them and our overall portfolio of investments for projects.
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"There is always significant demand for projects," admits Beaulieur.
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Despite the possibilities for infighting, Northwestern Mutual has had a largely positive experience, according to Beaulieur.

"We've adopted a very enterprisewide view of our portfolio investments.We have a cross-functional group of representatives that prioritizes the projects.Rather than take the siloed view, we look holistically across the organization."

Still, Beaulieur admits to the exigent nature of the process.

"It's challenging when you've got a life insurance line and an annuity line and the product departments are all trying to get something done to improve their bottom line.But the departments are involved in the decision so they have a tendency to understand the process," he says.
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Beaulieur describes IT/PPM implementation and management as a journey.
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Asked if IT/PPM has generated any cost-saving synergies for his company, Beaulieur says, "Abso-lutely-especially in the area of technology.
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Maturity is something Beaulieur also mentions as a goal.

"There's always that challenge of trying to refine it on a year-to-year basis, to find those things that are going to bring us to a different level of maturity," he says.