We
optimize your operations using our scalable seven-step process methodology to
yield complete, consistent, and repeatable solutions.
·
Process analysis- Review and
evaluation of your current-state business process and identification and
analysis of performance issues
·
Process definition-
Identification of the processes on which to focus, process requirements,
outlining of a prospective solution and articulation of the value to be
delivered
·
Process re visioning:
Creation and detailing of new processes based upon the best practices mined
·
Performance support -
Identification, design, and development of tools to support process workers.
Development of training programs to train the workers.
·
Process implementation-
Planned project management
·
Process evaluation -
Measurement of the business impact of your new or improved process
·
Process improvement -
expert recommendations for continuous process optimisation
Process Consultancy for a large Insurance Company
in Asia Pacific
One of the largest
life insurance companies in Hong Kong, this operates in China, Taiwan,
Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore & Vietnam.
Project profile
The project was initiated with a vision
to provide one common policy administration system for all individual life and
investment products throughout Asia. A central IT team, located in Hong Kong,
developed an administration system that supported some of the traditional life
insurance products. The system was deployed in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore,
Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam over a period of time.
The local IT teams of
the territories using the system had access to the source code for maintenance
purpose. Each territory added its own local features/products to the system,
resulting in variance in the system at different territories. Occasionally,
attempts were made by the central IT team to align all the software versions by
retrofitting the changes of one territory on the other. However, they were
finding it difficult to control the changes in the system and the number of
versions in production kept growing.
The Challenge
The central IT team wanted to put a
process in place whereby they would have one common application supporting the
Core Business functions for all Asian territories as well as have centralized
control of these core components.
Their objective was
·
To reduce the system
response time to market by reducing the rework on retrofitting and merging the
changes from one territory to another.
·
To have uniform policy
definition and ensure consistent implementation of the Core Business Process
Rules throughout Asia.
However, they also wanted to provide the local team flexibility to be able
to plug-in local features which would form the non-core part of the
application. Development and maintenance of the non-core components and
integration of the core and non-core would be the responsibility of the local
IT teams.
Processes needed to
be defined to allow the central IT team to control the Core Application as well
as allow local IT the flexibility to manage the non-core components. In this
context, the focus areas identified were:
1.
Requirement Management
2.
Configuration Management
3.
Release Management
4.
Issue management
Steps, processes and learning’s Strategy
·
Use the CMM framework for
process assessment and improvement.
·
Assess the existing
system through interviews and studying actual practices.
·
Highlight the strengths
and weaknesses.
·
Elaborate the risks
involved.
·
Propose a comprehensive
solution that leverages the strengths and plugs the weaknesses by putting in
controls in identified risk areas.
Execution
Phase-wise effort estimate
The Consultancy was
broken up in three phases.
·
Onsite study phase - 20
person days
·
Offshore Solution
building phase - 40 Person days.
·
Onsite Solution
presentation and sign-off phase - 5 person days.
An entire set of Processes, Guidelines
and Templates were delivered at the end of the Offshore phase for the following
activities. A brief outline of the recommendations is as follows:
·
Requirements Management
·
Requirements gathering process to collect requirements from
all territories.
·
Use cases for documenting requirements
·
Configuration Management
·
Managing multiple versions and parallel development
·
Rollout planning
·
Issue Management
·
Establishing
service level agreements for understanding the effectiveness of issue
resolutions.
Result
The client was happy
with the solution that was workable in their environment!
There was a buy-in
for the solution from all affected groups as they were involved in identifying
the problem areas and reviewing the solution.
An action plan was
created for the implementation of the solution.
Value additions for the
client
1. The main objective of the project was to have a
core product and yet allow local territories flexibility. Without a consensus
on the definition of core/non-core features (which FinaTech helped finalize),
this objective could not have been achieved.
2. In the areas of Release and Issue Management, the
processes followed were ad-hoc and not documented. FinaTech could help
formalize these processes to suit their environment.
3. Whereas in requirements gathering, processes
followed in some territories were good, it was necessary to help them spread
these good practices to all territories. Moreover, the controls required in
requirements gathering were missing and these had to be put in place.
Client's Remarks " It is really wonderful to work with
you and we have learned a lot through this consultancy process. We are looking
forward to yielding fruitful returns after placement of process
solutions."