In honor of National Innovation Day on February 16th, we want to share about HawkSoft’s focus on innovation through the years, which is driven by one of our core values:
Continuous Innovation
There will always be new needs to be met and opportunities for change and growth. By understanding the problem, processes, and pain points, opportunities for innovation will follow. Our eagerness to seek change — even when change may not be requested — allows us to stay ahead of our competition and our own perceptions of our boundaries on excellence. Growth comes from learning from our past to make the future better.
Innovation is woven into the fabric of every employee and their respective role in the organization. Our openness to fix even that which is not necessarily broken, for the sake of a better experience, is the basis of our drive to innovate, create, and continuously improve
As we near HawkSoft's 30th anniversary as a company later this year, we thought it would be interesting to look back over our three decades of product innovation. Here’s a timeline of the different versions of HawkSoft over the years, and the number of releases made to each version.
You can see the exponential increase in the speed of product innovation since the advent of HawkSoft Cloud, which allows us to release features much frequently than in past - typically every week. In fact, there have already been over 20% more releases on HawkSoft 6 than all the previous versions of HawkSoft combined (74 compared to 60)! This is truly an exciting time for HawkSoft.
We want to acknowledge that this level of innovation is made possible not only by the teams within HawkSoft, but by our agency users who drive our product development roadmap. We’re deeply grateful to our customers for helping us to continue refining and streamlining the HawkSoft Cloud platform to best meet the needs of independent agents.
For example during 2024, users submitted over 700 product suggestions to us via the HawkSoft Community (a place where users can suggest and vote on feature enhancements), and we were able to implement 180 of them—that’s 25%, a truly remarkable number in the software industry! Our private ownership model allows us to focus on the needs of agencies above all else, and we look forward to continuing to innovate on our product for more decades to come.
Here are a few quotes that customers have shared with us about the rapid pace of development on HawkSoft Cloud.
"I really like how we can make suggestions and share feedback in the HawkSoft Community. It's been so nice to see our suggestions added and we're pleased with how fast an update gets to us. It's awesome."
The Feltner Group , NY
"Now that we have used Hawksoft for 5 years I can truly say it was the best decision. The product has continuously improved due to them listening to feedback from their clients and implementing upgrades. It would be a shame if I didn't also mention the Hawksoft User Group, where we have learned so much from our peers using HawkSoft. Huge Fan! Keep up the great work!"
Simmerer Insurance, MD (Google review)
"I LOVE that you guys read and value our suggestions. I am new to HawkSoft and am still learning so I appreciate your patience and helpful tips more than you know. Thanks so much!"
Semon Insurance Agency, LA (Posted in HawkSoft Community)
We asked the HawkSoft team to share their thoughts on how HawkSoft has evolved over the last 30 years, both as a product and as a company. They shared how their jobs and roles have changed over the years due to innovation in the product or company. Here are a few we want to share with you!
Feature innovation
“Training new agencies on how to complete their carrier setup in HawkSoft Cloud is AMAZING! Easy to use and understand. In addition, it has never been easier to help an agency accommodate unique types of business!”
Kelli (Implementation team)
“I truly appreciate the ease and frequency of updates we have the ability to do in HawkSoft Cloud. If you would have told us 5 years ago that we would be able to do weekly releases, we probably would have laughed at the idea! Yet here we are today, releasing features regularly compared to maybe 3 times a year on past versions. I also don't miss requiring everyone to log out of HawkSoft until an update was complete for an agency.”
Noemi (Customer Success team)
“When the HawkSoft Virtual Printer first launched, it felt like magic. Suddenly, saving documents into HawkSoft was effortless—no more clunky workarounds or extra steps involving printing and scanning. With just a few clicks, what once took minutes was done in seconds. It quickly became one of those tools you didn’t realize you needed until you had it, and then you couldn’t imagine working without it.
Looking back, it’s amazing to see how this simple yet powerful feature transformed everyday workflows, making life easier for so many agencies. I'm grateful for the impact it had and proud of how far HawkSoft has come since then!”
Jake (Leadership team)
“I remember when HawkSoft didn’t offer much for Commercial Lines policies. The enhancements over the years have been incredible! CGL Hazard Screens, Commercial Property Underwriting, the ability to add coverage type, causes of loss, etc. to Property coverages—the list goes on and on.”
Cindy (Implementation team)
Innovation as a company
“Paul Hawkins used to go to agencies to install and train them on HawkSoft—now we have employees that work from all over the country. We have a team that creates knowledge-based articles and videos for an entire internal and external help system.
When I started 13 years ago, we each had notebook paper with notes to help us support the program, and we would add to those notes as we learned or discovered something new. Today we have resources and chat groups for that support. As much as the company has grown and changed, I am always grateful for a company that strives every day to live by their core values. It is a rare thing in the business world today.”
Debby (Implementation/Accounting team)
“I remember when Paul, Sean, and Jason WERE our Product Support Team. When I was a customer at an agency before joining HawkSoft, software updates used to be an entire case of floppy disks (50+), that were sometimes driven to us at the agency by Paul or Sean.
I remember troubleshooting technical software issues with Sean over the phone, where I literally had to read every square inch of what I was seeing on my screen to him. No screen sharing technology back then!”
Cindy (Implementation team)
“I started at HawkSoft almost 13 years ago with the development team. On my first day, when I asked Sean where the product team was located so I could go talk to them, he just blinked. Turns out he and Paul were the product team! Sean wrote all of the specs himself in those days.
It didn't take long to figure out that there was incredible heart at HawkSoft and the culture here was so different than anything I experienced working for other tech companies. All these years later, while we have grown and changed in so many ways, we still live by those same core values I witnessed all those years ago, and that to me is our greatest accomplishment.”
Brita (Product/Development team)
“I remember Brita’s hire! What a big move it was for us to have a development leader to organize what we do next, and to introduce the idea of a scrum board to those of us not in development. It was one of the best decisions HawkSoft ever made to take that burden off of Paul and Sean and to create a team of collaborators.”
Tiffany (Customer Success team)
“2021 was the beginning of the Customer Success Management department. The way it has evolved from focusing on retention to also being proactive has been phenomenal. I look forward to the continued growth of this department and am so happy that as a company we continue to evolve and implement solutions for customer needs.”
Noemi (Customer Success team)
Learn more about HawkSoft's historyWant to learn more about the story of the Hawkins family and the history of HawkSoft as a company? Read "Living the American Dream: The HawkSoft Sory," released in 2020. |