Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Insurance Company Expects Annual Savings of S$10 Million withAutomated Processing
Overview
Country or Region:Singapore
Industry:Insurance
Customer Profile
NTUC Income is a Singapore-based insurance company with assets exceeding S$15 billion (U.S.$9.06 billion).
Business Situation
An increase in the demand for online services meant that the company’s COBOL-based mainframe system was becoming obsolete.
Solution
Microsoft®SQL Server™ 2005 offers innovative, high-availability features such as database mirroring, failover clustering, and enhanced online operations to minimise potential downtime and support the best possible service.
Benefits
Savings of S$4 million (U.S.$2.42 million).
Automatically processes 60 percent of documents.
Transactions cut from five days to five minutes.
Supports accurate business decisions.
Expected performance improvements of 300 percent. / “By analysing and understanding the customer, we can make accurate business decisions and get results quickly. The success we’ve had using these techniques has demonstrated to our business owners the validity of SQL Server 2005 analysis.”
James Kang, Chief Information Officer, NTUC Income
Singapore-based insurance company NTUC Income needed to respond to an increased demand for online services. It was keen to improve agility by better understanding customers and reducing manual processes. With support from Microsoft®Services, the company rolled out a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database solution, which offers high-availability features such as database mirroring and failover clustering. Combined with a Microsoft-based mobility solution and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005, the service dramatically reduces manual processes and automates document processing, ensuring savings of S$4 million (U.S.$2.42 million) since deployment. Customer service has dramatically improved, with transaction turnaround reduced to as little as five minutes. And enhanced business intelligence features offer extensive customer analysis, helping the business accurately target customers and boost its position in the market.
Situation
The insurance market is key among the growing number of industries required to deliver efficient online services. The industry is experiencing greater competition, with increasing customer demands, and more serious challenges to overcome.
NTUC Income, one of Singapore’s leading insurance organisations, manages these challenges by staying ahead of technological changes. So when an increase in online service offerings meant that its COBOL-based mainframe system was becoming obsolete, the organisation sought to re-invent its IT infrastructure.
James Kang, Chief Information Officer at NTUC Income, says: “COBOL was a proprietary system, which didn’t link to the Internet efficiently. Transactions took a long time to complete. And when there were changes in the market, it took a long time to roll out new products or services.”
NTUC Income decided to overhaul its systems, focusing on three key areas.
The organisation knew that to remain competitive, it had to get closer to customers. “We had to be more agile in the way we did business to keep up with changes,” says Kang. “Our system didn’t give us the opportunity to query customer information effectively. It was important that we could understand our customers better and therefore target them more effectively.”
Secondly, NTUC Income still used a lot of traditional process, especially paper-based methods that needed to be replaced. “Only one person can work on a paper document at one time. It has to be physically transported, and is easily misplaced,” says Kang.
Finally, the company wanted to speed up document processing and automate transactions from end to end. By redesigning these work processes, NTUC Income was looking to achieve several business goals, such as reducing operational costs while providing a better turnaround time for customers’ policies and claims. Kang says: “There’s really no room for wastage. We have to be a cost-effective and efficient operation.”
A robust database solution was essential to support the organisation’s growing number of transactions. NTUC Income runs a combination of online transactions, such as policy applications; and batch transactions, such as reports and updates. Dealing with these transactions using the COBOL system used a lot of resources. Batch transactions were processed at night, and online transactions were processed during the day. “With 2 million customers and thousands of transactions every day, we really needed an efficient database to process this information faster,” says Kang.
Solution
NTUC found that the extensive features in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 meant that the database solution was far more suited to its needs. “SQL Server 2005 has bridged all the gaps in database technology, and exceeded the functionalities of Oracle,” says Kang.
“Rich features and extra capability are important. We are in the business of confidence—the customer trusts us with the welfare of their loved ones. To keep that confidence, it is important for us to have robust systems. SQL Server 2005 offers innovative, high-availability features such as database mirroring, failover clustering, and enhanced online operations to minimise potential downtime and support the best possible service. This is a key requirement for us.”
The company worked closely with Microsoft Services, which helped NTUC Income develop the framework for its next-generation insurance software. During a month-long engagement, the Microsoft consultant studied NTUC Income’s existing application and new business requirements, and provided important assessments of its current architecture, development platforms, teams, and processes. The consultant also recommended a suitable application architecture, coding standards and practices, application performance improvements, and operational and testing procedures.
The new system runs on the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system and was built using the Microsoft .NET Framework with support for smart client applications, and the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 development system.
Smart client technology runs on Microsoft Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition devices, which will be rolled out to more than 2,500 insurance agents in the field. Visual Studio 2005 synchronisation keeps the Tablet PCs constantly updated with the latest products, enhancements, and customer information, and Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004 manages message queues to and from the Tablet PCs.
Agents in the field no longer rely on paper, which had to be transported to branches where information was keyed into the system, scanned, and proofed. Now, the information is entered directly into the device, and sent to NTUC Income’s back-end systems from the field.
From here, the full benefits of SQL Server 2005 become apparent. The database solution ensures that organisations with mission-critical Web sites can be confident that one server will fail over to another in the event of a fault, thereby minimising the impact of a potential crisis. Fault-tolerant virtual servers provide fast failover by distributing the data across multiple database servers.
“We have a disaster recovery site and primary site. Every time we input a record or image of a document, it is replicated at our disaster recovery centre. This information is recorded in near real time,” says Kang.
SQL Server 2005 offers 64-bit support, which gives NTUC Income the scalability to build and deploy its most demanding applications on HP 64-bit servers.
NTUC Income also uses the new SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services business intelligence platform that provides the features and tools to build analytical applications. Data mining services and Reporting Services helps the business personalise reports and deliver them in a variety of formats. “We use reports for many purposes to run our operation efficiently and effectively, to ensure that everything is accounted for and all situations are properly handled,” says Kang.
Benefits
Savings of up to S$2.4 Million through Automation
NTUC Income’s agents spend most of their time visiting companies and individuals. Agents traditionally gathered information on paper forms at these meetings. Now, they input information on their Tablet PCs, which integrates with SQL Server 2005 in real time.
Around 60 percent of all claims or policy applications can be processed automatically. Previously, this process cost the company around S$20 (U.S.$35.46) a transaction. “We carry out at least 10,000 transactions a month. At S$20 a transaction, we save as much as S$2.4 million (U.S.$1.45 million) a year thanks to the reduction in processing,” says Kang.
“Through the redesign of the company, we have made more than S$4 million (U.S.$2.42 million) a year in savings already. Over the next three years, I’m expecting to see savings of at least S$10 million (U.S.$6.04 million) a year, thanks to this technology restructure.”
Turnaround Time for Policy Processing Reduced to Five Minutes
Transactions that used to take at least five days can now be completed in as little as a few minutes. “Insurance policies have a critical fast turnaround. Customers want to be covered as quickly as possible,” says Kang.
“The fact that we can reduce this policy turnaround time so extensively is welcomed by customers. They are delighted with our service levels, which are vital in winning business over the competition.”
Better Understanding of Customers with Advanced Analysis Features
NTUC Income uses the advanced reporting features of SQL Server 2005 to run its operation more efficiently. Specifically, the organisation can use information obtained quickly and easily with powerful analysis tools to better understand customers.
“We are providing almost S$400 million (U.S.$236 million) of motor insurance,” says Kang. “The motor insurance industry is undergoing big transformations due to the Internet. Instead of buying or renewing their policies through an agent, many people prefer to do it on the Web site, or call our contact centre. We have to understand how these changes are affecting our business, and what methods of advertising get our customers’ attention.”
NTUC uses SQL Server 2005 for data mining, using the predictive tools to campaign to customers through different channels. “By analysing and understanding the customer, we can make accurate business decisions and get results quickly. The success we’ve had using these techniques has demonstrated to our business owners the validity of SQL Server 2005 analysis. They see graphs updated daily, which show the effectiveness of some channels over others, or timely reports to help them fine-tune their handling of the market.” says Kang. “This is crucial. We have to know what is and what isn’t working. If we fail, it’s potentially S$400 million down the drain. If we succeed, we will lead the industry and grow our market share substantially.”
Productivity Improvements of up to 300 Percent
A four-month rollout kept deployment costs to a minimum. According to Kang, the system has been far easier to support and manage than the organisation’s previous solution.
“With Visual Studio 2005, the productivity of the developer has increased significantly because there are a lot of simple tools built into the framework. This combined with the smart client ensures that we can synchronise the thousands of Tablet PCs from the central server and means that the software we are running is always the latest version. Any data that we need to synchronise with the field agent, such as customer information, can be sent quickly and easily.”
Productivity across the organisation has increased dramatically. Agents in the field can do their jobs faster and more efficiently. Fewer resources are needed for processing claims and applications, and support is cost effective and more manageable. “In all, we expect a performance improvement of between 50 and 300 percent across our organisation,” says Kang.
Securing the Company’s Future
NTUC Income is confident that its infrastructure will support the organisation well into the future. “The Internet is not restricted by national boundaries or time zones,” says Kang. “We can compete very effectively with this solution and roll out innovative products that would not have been possible before, including a new generation of insurance products, which are online, transparent, and immediate.”
“We have reinvented the business and are already seeing the benefits—dramatically reduced costs, agility, and better understanding of customers. We can study their buying patterns and reactions, and really position ourselves as a leading, innovative Internet insurance company.”
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System™ is a line of integrated and manageable server software designed to reduce the complexity and cost of IT. Windows Server System enables you to spend less time and budget on managing your systems so that you can focus your resources on other priorities for you and your business.
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