Helping a large insurer achieve £30m savings over 5 years by better collaboration between operating units
The Situation
A large, globally federated healthcare insurer wanted to create internal, ‘repeatable’ capabilities that would achieve the following goals across its country-specific operating units (OUs):
(a) reduce the duplication of IT platforms supporting business-critical functions by creating one set of capabilities that can be re-used by multiple OUs
(b) accelerate the transfer of knowledge and best practice between OUs to achieve benefits of at least £20m over 5 years
The Task
- Identify & confirm capabilities critical to the business strategy & which of the OUs were delivering best practice
- Get buy-in from individual OU executive boards to support achieving the initiative’s goals
- Justify & acquire funding for the initiative from Group Finance
- Design the operating model for the repeatable capabilities
The Action / Approach
- Created & confirmed the capability map diagram for the organisation’s operating model
- Captured the current state of each OU’s capabilities across people, processes, data & systems & mapped them to the diagram. Alongside, reviewed each OU’s strategy & change portfolio to identify priorities. Using these inputs identified which OU capabilities could be uplifted by another’s and thereby accelerate meeting business priorities
- Created the business case to acquire the necessary funding, with a 5 year benefits forecast & delivery plan
- Led the enterprise architecture & business analysis during initiative delivery (using Agile(Scrum)) working closely with the programme’s director
The Result
- The business case acquired £5 million in funding from Group Finance for the initiative
- The delivery team implemented best practice capability into OU’s in the UK, Hong Kong, Spain & Australia that uplifted claims management and underwriting. Particular focus on ensuring claims contract compliance using Microsoft Dynamics 365, APIs, portals and improved business processes
- The initiative was on-track to achieve total cost-savings of £30 million over 5 years (by end 2021)
Focus In On: Responsible for Business Architecture
New Areas of Value:
Optimise service efficiency and effectiveness
Provide strategic and operational business decision support
Turn strategy into projects and / or programs
Improve cross-business collaboration, service delivery and asset utilisation
Ensure alignment and integration of architecture to business strategy
Improvements around:
Getting a seat at the right table
Lack of knowledge transfer
Political and cultural resistance
Lack of strategic focus on architecture from the business
