BusinessTN

Business is booming at Asurion. And luckily for Nashville, the privately held provider of handset insurance, warranty management and roadside assistance services for the wireless industry relocated its global headquarters here from San Mateo, Calif., in 2004. Founded in 1994, Asurion also has offices in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Just last year, it merged with Lock/line, an administrative service provider for extended warranty and handset replacement programs, and acquired Warranty Corp. of America and Lumitrend.

The company currently employs about 5,000 people worldwide, with more than 1,900 people in Middle Tennessee. It serves more than 60 million wireless subscribers through partnerships with mobile operators such as T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and Cingular.

Chris Corrado, senior vice president of technology products, says Asurion aims for a 20% annual growth in terms of the company's intrinsic value. Plus, the demand for Asurion's services continues to grow. Such growth, coupled with a demand for additional technology, leads to tech staffing needs that Corrado terms "neverending."

"Beyond just adding more subscribers and the staffing needs that come with that, there are more things that we want to do with technology," says Corrado, 47, who oversees the company's expanding IT project areas. "We want to become a more intelligent user and analyzer of data."

An example, Corrado says, is a sales capability that allows Asurion to profile customers who call with claims, so that Asurion representatives can try to sell them something suited to their needs, whether it be an accessory or a contract upgrade.

Today, Corrado oversees about 375 tech employees globally, with more than half of them in Nashville. He says that Asurion averages about 30 open IT positions, including infrastructure and development-related positions.

"We're responding to the growth and complexity of the business and the speed with which we want to act," he says. "We're not constrained by the amount the company wants to invest. If we're constrained by anything, it's talent — our problem is finding qualified people. We would hire more people if we could find them."
Although it varies from year to year, Corrado says Asurion spends about $65 million on technology-related operating expenses and $25 million in capital investments annually.

In some ways, Asurion is a consumer peace-of-mind provider. "When you lose [a cell phone], you want the product replaced as quickly as possible."

It's a mission Corrado clearly believes in — after all, he left eBay to join Asurion more than two years ago, and before that, he was the CIO of AT&T Wireless.

"Asurion looked like it had enormous opportunity," he says. "It had a good mix of talent at the top, and it seemed to be a collaborative company in a business and market that looked very attractive."

And how did he feel about making the cross country move from San Jose, Calif., to Nashville? Though initially, Corrado says, he did not know what to expect, now, "It's easy living."

Quite a compliment coming from someone who's lived in places like San Jose, Seattle and Hong Kong.