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Acturis - connected thinking in action
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Across Europe, the commercial lines insurance industry is undergoing unprecedented change. |
Faced with increased pressure on commissions, the threat of the direct market, and increased costs as brokers need to prove compliance to the regulator, the industry is having to face up to an unpalatable truth. It is a multi-billion euro, fragmented and extremely inefficient market.
Multiple hand-offs, duplication, manual processes, errors, rework and incompatible systems result in overheads absorbing 34 per cent of all premiums. In other words, more than one third of the premiums from commercial customers does not go towards risk transfer, but is consumed in cost. This inefficiency results in low (or no) profitability and is compounded by poor customer service.
Responding to the challenge
In July 2002, Acturis launched its Broker Platform which uses web technology to deliver an industry-leading integrated suite of back-office applications that embody broker best practices - from customer relationship management to financial management accounting.
A key part of the platform is its Report Centre. In seeking a business intelligence analytic and reporting platform, Acturis turned to MicroStrategy for its unrivalled ease of use with enterprise-class robustness, scalability and power.
"The Report Centre is one of the highlights of the system and arguably the primary vehicle for getting people interested in the overall platform," observes Simon Ronaldson, sales and marketing manager at Acturis. "The power and flexibility delivered via the Report Centre is far beyond what the industry is used to and plays a major role in our overall aim of enabling our customers to eliminate waste, improve operational efficiency and provide enhanced customer service."
Acturis: a new way of doing business
Acturis is the brainchild of two former McKinsey partners, David McDonald and Theo Duchen, with over 20 years experience in the insurance market, who well understand the inefficiencies prevalent in the industry. Research commissioned by Acturis has identified that around 34 per cent of premiums are spent on transaction costs.
The same data is re-keyed up to eight times in the process and there is severe duplication between the broker and other parties in the chain. And with re-keying comes errors - 46 per cent of documents sent to the broker from the insurer are incorrect and need to be re-sent, and of those documents re-sent by the insurer, 30 per cent remain incorrect.
The Acturis Broker Platform has been designed to drive out such inefficiencies. A key feature of the system is that it is delivered to brokers over a data link with Acturis acting as an Application Service Provider (ASP) - 'connected thinking', both in terms of integration and delivery.
This Web-based model posed some significant requirements when it came to developing the important Report Centre module. Andrew Lloyd, Business Analyst at Acturis, explains: "We needed a Web-based tool that would be easy to deploy, easy to use and offer brokers a powerful, feature-rich tool to put the information they need at their fingertips."
Enterprise-class business intelligence
The search for an appropriate report engine started in the autumn of 2001 with an initial trawl of systems from around 15 vendors who were whittled down to three contenders. A series of demonstrations and in-depth discussions followed with the solution from MicroStrategy emerging the clear winner. Asked 'why MicroStrategy?' Andrew Lloyd lists the following key criteria:
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Zero-footprint Web Client. MicroStrategy Web is an HTML-only Web solution that places no demands on users other than to access the system via their Web browser. |
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Enterprise-class. MicroStrategy 7 is the first integrated business intelligence platform built for the enterprise. |
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Ease of integration. The MicroStrategy SDK (software developer's kit) contains fully-featured APIs and open source code that would enable Acturis to efficiently integrate the business intelligence engine into the Acturis Broker Platform. |
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Clustering. Components such as MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and MicroStrategy Web Server being clustered to support large numbers of concurrent users. Load balancing would transparently distribute load between clustered machines while appearing as a single unit to the end user. In addition, sophisticated caching would eliminate redundant processing and maximise performance. |
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Power and Ease of Use. MicroStrategy's drag and drop approach to report writing and its rich variety of graphical styles combine ease of use with industry-leading business intelligence power. |
"We took a lot of comfort in the fact that MicroStrategy 7 has been designed properly as an enterprise platform," said Lloyd. "This was evident not just in the fact that the system was better documented than its rivals. Its technical architecture and its ability to run the various components in the most optimum way across multiple servers spoke of an enterprise solution.
"The alternatives felt like they hadn't quite been designed for this environment - they were more desktop tools that had been stretched. MicroStrategy had the robust feel of being an enterprise platform and was the only one that gave us confidence that it had been designed for this purpose."
The SDK is also singled out by Lloyd for special mention: "This was a key area for us and one of our technical people looked in some detail at the SDKs offered by the shortlisted companies. Once again, we were confident that we could work best with MicroStrategy's platform which logs people seamlessly into a MicroStrategy Web session while overlaying the Acturis look and feel."
Fast implementation
Acturis decided to go with MicroStrategy in late 2001 and - with the Acturis Broker Platform set to go live on July 1, 2002 - a fast, trouble-free integration was paramount. In fact, Acturis' technical people were able to carry out most of the work themselves using the SDK and other MicroStrategy tools such as Desktop Designer to map business models and build the initial reports. MicroStrategy consultants provided validation of Acturis integration and provided more detailed help with some of the more complex areas of software integration.
"I think one of the most impressive things about the project was the speed with which we were able to deliver the system," observes Ronaldson. "We had a remarkably tight deadline to get to market and MicroStrategy was part of the team that gave us the tools we needed to put the system in place."
Since launch the system has created something of a stir within the UK commercial lines industry, and within the first month was serving over 200 brokers from Acturis partner brokers Bland Bankart, and Smart and Cook.
Powerful management tools
The Report Centre contains a vast and growing library of reports - currently around 160 - to provide management information on all modules in the Acturis system and is able to generate reports on every aspect of business performance.
Accounting and management information such as trial balances, P&L, balance sheets, and aged debtor analysis as well as sales performance, conversion rate of quotes, business mix and loss ratios, are well catered for. Other reports highlight insurer service performance in policy issue and claims settlement, insurer loss ratio analysis, broker profitability and revenue performance across self-defined segments of business, and broker cross-sell and up-sell campaign reports.
The Report Centre offers powerful and accurate management information allowing effective comparisons of many critical business metrics across broker offices, account executives, handlers and teams. Comparison or period sales by account executives can show premium, commission, fees and total income - all at the touch of a button.
The system can be set so that these are automatically generated at predetermined times, with the information delivered directly to the recipient's report inbox. This information can also be dispatched to appropriate third parties, such as an insurer partner on a scheme, or cash flow information delivered to the bank.
There is also the opportunity to anonymously share performance data with other users. If this is done, the business performance of a broker can then be measured against other contributors and benchmarked accordingly.
Connected best practise
"These reports have been developed after working with our partner brokers to identify industry best practice in terms of the information needed to best manage commercial lines insurance business," says Ronaldson. "Not one of our prospective customers will ever have experienced a Report Centre with such power because the MicroStrategy business intelligence engine is so far beyond what is common in the industry."
"The report engine delivers appropriate, accurate and instant management information, that can be exported to CSV or Excel for further manipulation. Importantly, it delivers the functionality advanced users want, as well as making it simple for less experienced users to run the reports they need at the touch of a button," he explains.
For Lloyd, one of the highlights of the MicroStrategy solution is its use of a Meta-data layer that effectively insulates report writing from the database structure to provide industry-leading flexibility. "MicroStrategy's Meta-data layer enables us to reuse objects in building-up reports. In other words if the database changes you don't have to re-write every single report. Moving forward, this greatly simplifies the process of keeping reports maintained."
Lloyd also welcomes MicroStrategy's scalability: "As our user volumes increase we will benefit from being able to drop in extra boxes running the same components, buying extra licences that scale up easily without having to re-design the system."
Asked what he most appreciates about the system, Ronaldson answers simply: "It is impressive. It is easy to use, it is reliable and it delivers. When talking to a managing director about the critical levers they need to manage their business, the MicroStrategy part of any demonstration really gets the message across. It's not just the graphics, it's the general look and feel of the system - and the way it works, absolutely."
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An integrated solution |
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Based on an earlier system called Riskline, Acturis and its partners have invested approximately £10 million in developing the Acturis Broker Platform which comprises the following integrated modules: |
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Contact Management enabling brokers to manage relationships with multiple contacts at a third party company, be it a client, a loss adjuster, or perhaps even a sub-agent or introducer.
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Policy Administration using structured risk capture, rather than free format text, to allow brokers to improve service and reduce costs through greater use of autorating and, over time, XML integration with insurers.
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Task Manager where the system automatically prompts handlers to perform tasks tailored to a broker's own customer service charter, as well as allowing workflow to be monitored and reallocated between handlers.
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Claims which allows the broker to manage claims delegated authorities within the system, as well as capturing tailored information specific to individual client risk management needs.
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Report Centre whereby brokers are able to instantly access the information vital to running their businesses effectively, without the need to gather and manipulate data manually.
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"We took a lot of comfort in the fact that MicroStrategy 7 has been designed properly as an enterprise platform. This was evident not just in the fact that the system was better documented than its rivals. Its technical architecture and its ability to run the various components in the most optimum way across multiple servers spoke of an enterprise solution."
Andrew Lloyd
Business Analyst
Acturis |
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