Miracles happen elsewhere. Deploying a Digitisation and Automation strategy won't happen overnight, in a two-week sprint or with the wave of a magic wand… It requires a clear vision, focus, positivity and planning across people, clients, processes and technology.

Why do 70% of digital transformations fail? In my experience, this is because they have lacked the holistic approach necessary for success.

I’m resolute in my belief that it is only by recognising and respecting the interplay between people, process, technology and clients in the Digitisation and Automation journey that success can be attained.

People

People are the key ingredient to becoming successful and achieving goals.

Factors that might help you in your Digitisation and Automation journey:

  • Clear aspirations and a clear roadmap

  • Solid and transparent change management

  • AI for repetitive and low/no added value tasks, so people can focus on adding value

  • Communication and respect between Business and IT is key

  • Engage people in Design Thinking, but note their limitations

  • Process consistency - people should be able to fulfil their task in one go and possibly within a few applications

  • Focus to get things done, delivered, implemented and rolled out

Hands – Heads – Hearts should be our focus

Digitisation and Automation eliminates time-consuming and repetitive work. Thus, freeing up people’s hands, heads and hearts to engage with each other and deliver real, added value for the company, and, more importantly, for the clients.

Clients

The large broking firms have long-established Digitisation and Automation journeys to:

  • Rationalise and standardise their interactions with Reinsurance companies

  • Improve turnaround times

  • Get their unallocated cash problem under control

These journeys must consider their unique needs:

  • A higher transaction volume

  • A constant flow of transactions

  • A common technological processing platform despite highly regional business

Digitisation and Automation frees up time and capacity to serve clients.

A better understanding of client needs helps to improve service, increase satisfaction on both sides and create solid relationships.

An OPS function that is responsible for technical accounting and claims processing is engaged with the following clients in one way or another:

• Underwriting
• Finance
• Reserving
• Brokers

• Cedents
• Auditors
• Authorities
• Client management (sales)

There’s true and real potential on the broking side to engage in full-scale Digitisation and Automation. However, for small brokers as well as for the majority of cedents, a full-scale integration appears not to be feasible in the foreseeable future so different approaches must be explored via technology.

Process

Whether something is transacted manually or digitally, the applied process should always be the same:

Without a consistent process in the manual world, there won’t be any Automation.

Digitisation and Automation must complement the regular process.

When designing a process, there are key elements to consider:

e2e thinking

Whether manual or digital, the processing of technical accounting and claims cannot be fulfilled without upstream and downstream process understanding between clients, which means:

  • Thinking must be end-to-end rather than in a silo

  • All structures and objects necessary for efficient processing are up to date and available on demand

Simplicity

Processes need to be simple, easy to understand and transparent. There are always exceptions, but a process should not be designed around the most complex case. Standardise and clean-up processes before embarking on a build to maximise the value of the Digitisation.

This results in a process that might look like this:

Triage

Analysis & Booking

Approval

Financial Handling

Technology

Technology on its own does not deliver any benefits until it interplays with people, clients and processes and allows them to excel.

The basis for technology deployment must be real business challenges, requirements and needs rather than getting caught up by those newest to the market or with the biggest price tag.

For the greatest chance at success, there are several elements to consider:

  • Communication between business and IT people

    Business should take the lead on defining the business challenge, however, IT should always lead in deciding the technology to use

  • ACORD Standard/Bodies

    New ACORD Standards relevant for technical accounting and claims processing are released infrequently since it is difficult to have all members agree on timelines and content that’s becoming increasingly specific and detailed

Industry platforms

Consider with caution.

Reinsurance is an industry where contracts are in place for years to come - consider whether the industry platform will still be around and delivering a solid and reliable resource 5 or 10 years down the road.

Data Quality

Consistency in a technical/technological context.

  • Processing data digitally and automatically requires constantly checking that no corrupt data objects have been created from causes such as software bugs, badly provided data or unusual actions by users

  • It’s useful to perform such data quality checks on manually created records

  • The aim is to identify issues early on and to fix them on an ongoing basis to build a strong foundation for Automation

Systems

Less is more - focusing on a few systems is always better and allows functionality to be kept simple and transparent.

  • Don’t compensate for deficiencies in one system by introducing another or through complex integrations

  • Connect workflow systems and record systems to avoid duplicate data but keep them as their own entities

  • IT should focus on day-to-day operations and maintenance as well as larger projects and upgrades