DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

Archive for February, 2009

Many software companies have targeted the insurance industry with a software product offering in the last few years. These software products are able to be taken off the shelf and seemingly dropped into production.

The apparent speed of deployment can be appealing to a business that is striving to get things done and kick goals in the shortest time frame possible. The lure of such a solution can be all the more appealing when the other option is a custom software project which (as reputation would lead you to belief) can take several months to design build and then test. Although the custom software approach would inevitably lead to a better fit for the business, efficiency is sacrificed for the sake of apparent speed of deployment.

This view of insurance industry software is to my mind far too simplistic and fails to take into account a best of both worlds approach which has been developed and refined in recent years.

Every insurance company is different. By their nature, they need to be different in order to gain competitive advantage over their competitors. The way risk is calculated, premiums and pricing are calculated are all highly specialised and are often updated and refined on a frequent basis.

BA’s, Risk Managers and Actuary’s need to be able to make changes to such calculations without having to add to the work load of IT managers. Long and convoluted change management processes simply become an unnecessary stumbling block for a department focused on getting things done. By the same token, the IT team can be hesitant to give untrained personnel access to business logic in a business critical system.

The solution lies in using a Business Rules Management System (BRMS) to seperate out the business logic and make it accessible to the people that need it. Rules or sets of rules can be locked down using role based security to prevent unauthorised changes to business logic. As well as speeding up the change request process, a collaborative approach to business logic can then harnessed allowing the business to catapult into a new realm of business agility.

In addition to all this, the software development cycle is significantly reduced, allowing insurance businesses to reap the benefits of their investment sooner.

A BRMS approach to insurance industry software allows you to enjoy the benefits of off the shelf software (rapid deployment, stable code base,) with all the benefits of custom software. (efficiency, fit, usability, performance)

To find out more about how BRMS can work for you, register for our forthcoming the webinar at

http://www.solentive.com/software-events.html

A business is often only considered as good as its processes and procedures but all too often this can get neglected as other seemingly more important tasks compete for our attention.

Interestingly, the very act of documenting our processes is step towards automating some of those business processes and decreasing our reliance on individual staff members. A sound approach towards business process mapping, whilst considering factors such as scalability and repeatability, combined with the right technology can make a profound difference to the operating profits of a business.

At the moment, business confidence is at an all time low and some companies are halting all spending on non essential projects.

I’m challenging the logic of that. Some of the work that we have done recently has allowed our customers to double the effectiveness of the workforce but has cost the business the rough equivalent of 1.5 X FTE. The remaining staff were twice as effective and are likely to have more job security as a result.

Using SEBA, we were able to get the system into product in a fraction of the time. Now is a time to be spending conservatively and wisely and maximising ROI.

http://www.solentive.com/custom-software-framework.html

Earmarked for the 6th March, our online event takes insurance industry IT management through some of the concepts of using Business Rules Management Systems.

By separating some of the business logic into a rules engine, Insurance companies can take greater control of their IT and fast track the process of change management and save money along the way.

The insurance industry is also able to make use of the theory of Complex event processing, which we also hope to cover off.

Registration is free but limited to

1) Business Analysts
2) Senior IT Management
3) Risk Managers
4) Actuarys
5) Finances

To register, visit

http://www.solentive.com/software-events.html