American Skandia, the US financial services arm of Skandia, is now selling itself as an asset aggregator, which its senior vice president Christian Thwaites admits is a somewhat unwieldy term. But the spin is not too far off base, as the Shelton, Connecticut company is adamant about the outsourcing of its products investment management, with solid success of late. Its latest push is to increase the use of its advisor Web site and it has found an interesting method of speeding the process along.

With hot fund companies like Janus, Rydex, and ProFunds filling the variable annuity coffers, Skandia is now number one in net sales of variable annuities -- according to Thwaites the firm also has the goal of becoming the number three asset aggregator by 2002, and number one by 2005.

One of the ways the company gathers its assets is via the registered investment advisor channel, with over 20,000 distributing its products. AS is making a concerted effort to get advisors onto the advisor section of its website and has launched a unique initiative to assist this process.

The firm has formed a group of "EWholesalers," culled both from its IT and marketing staff, who are visiting advisors who sell Skandia's products in order to assist them in their transition to the "New Economy." The group, which was formed a year ago, was started with one EWholesaler and expanded to three, regionally based in Denver, Atlanta, and Shelton, said Lori Allen, Skandia's national marketing director, EMarketing. Allen added that the Skandia would probably add to its team in the near future.

The EWholesalers act as a portable help desk, answering questions from simple issues like setting up a computer to more complex issues like how to setup online accounts and the use of AS products like DST's Vision and Wiesenberger's InvestmentView. In addition, the EWholesalers will have been educated about Skandia's various products and its website -- their knowledge will then be passed to the advisors, making sure that they're aware of the Web site and its features.

"The advisors really appreciate having the EWholesalers in the field," said Allen. "They're a great value-added service, because they are not there to necessarily push the product, and often they end up educating the advisors on many issues from simply browsing the Internet to how to use Skandia's many online tools."

Allen added that Skandia also has an arrangement with New Horizons Computer Learning Centers which sets up training sessions for advisors and their administrative staff. 

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