|
When
it comes to IT, like in all other fields, one cannot expect
a PSU to emerge a winner and precisely so is the case of Oriental
Insurance Company Limited (OICL), a subsidiary of General
Insurance Corporation of India (GIC). Thanks to union issues
and redundant practices, the company has been a laggard on
the IT front. However, as Punita Jasrotia found out,
that is set to change
As
is in all fields, when it comes to leveraging IT to get that
extra edge in business, the government and in turn PSUs have
been laggards. Even as private companies are ranting and raving
about the margins they are now making—thanks to the creation
and implementation of a solid IT policy, it comes as no surprise
that PSUs are still way behind in the race. The Oriental Insurance
Company Limited (OICL), one of the four general insurance
companies in India operating under the aegis of the General
Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India, is one such example.
Although the company embarked on its IT initiatives way back
in 1978, it is yet to establish connectivity with its regional
and branch offices.
R C Jain, assistant general manager-IT, Oriental Insurance,
points out that the company’s IT initiatives have come
a cropper primarily due to ‘union’ issues. He says,
“Be it the introduction of hardware, development of software
or a front office for faster work performance, the company
had to always face stiff opposition from unions and this hampered
our progress.” However, he adds, that an agreement was
signed with GIC in 1994, which sought to take care of these
issues.
Following this agreement, the company embarked on a massive
IT drive which sought to not only consolidate its database,
but also deploy end-to-end solutions that would help it serve
its customers better. Jain adds that these initiatives are
aimed at not only delivering quality to their customers but
also at positioning OICL as a strong and dynamic player in
the area of life insurance.
Origin
and scale of operations
One of the oldest insurance companies in the country, OICL
was established as a subsidiary of GIC at Delhi in 1947. With
offices in practically every district of the country (21 Regional
Offices, 311 Divisional Offices and 635 Branch offices) and
supported by a 22,000 strong workforce, the company operates
in the general insurance arena (non-life insurance), with
business ranging from very big projects to small rural insurance
covers. It specialises in devising special covers for large
projects like power plants, petro-chemical, steel and chemical
plants. With operations covering such a diverse area, the
company felt the need for IT in order to manage its business
more efficiently.
Early
systems
As in all companies, although OICL introduced computers in
the organisation way back in 1978, initially all its processing
requirements were outsourced. For payroll, the company would
send data to TCS. This however, was limited to the requirements
of the Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai offices.
 |
JAIN says although unions have been
a major hindrance to the company’s IT plans, things are
looking up |
The
company roped in the services of the Mafatlal Group to develop
an Investment and Divisional Accounting System that was implemented
in all offices of the company barring those in the Eastern
region on 1980. Describing the system, Jain says that all
data of the Northern region was sent to the central office
at Delhi through floppies, where it was compiled using the
EDP system and later on sent to Mumbai. Since all this was
done manually, the processing would take around six months.
This translated into a lot of wastage of resources in terms
of time and money and also left the processing open to error.
With the automation of its payroll and accounting, the company
took it easy on the IT front. However, things changed when
in 1986, GIC hired system specialists for all its four subsidiaries—OICL,
New India Assurance, United India Insurance and National Insurance.
This also marked the establishment of separate core groups
in GIC for software development for major systems and also
the in-house development of the same. One core group was based
at each subsidiary, while GIC had one employee from each company
reporting to it.
Though there was an attempt to develop ‘a common software’
for all the insurance companies, the core group could customise
the software as per needs. In some cases, the core groups
also developed their own software packages. Some of the software
which was implemented to fulfil the basic needs of OIC included
back office operations such as the divisional accounts system,
reinsurance accounts system, payroll system, central account
and regional office accounts software. In addition to this,
the company also tried work on the Personal Management and
HR front, but was not successful due to the due to the lack
of connectivity.
On the hardware front, the company used SCO UNIX based Motorola
68020 systems at their regional offices and the head office.
The back office applications were developed using Unify RDBMS
with an interface in C and MF COBOL. For its divisional offices,
the company used MS DOS and MSCOBOL based applications on
PCs.
Even as the company rapidly scaled up its back-end infrastructure,
it could not develop any package to cover its front-end operations
due to a MoU reached with the unions in 1986, according to
which computers where to be relegated for back-end work only.
Jain points out that this created a lot of problems for the
company since its IT team had to operate in a restricted environment.
Further, this meant that insurance policies could not be printed
and had to be typed manually. With close to 60 lakh policies
a year, this was in itself a stupendous task. When added to
the claims that came in, the entire process became even more
strenuous. However, following the agreement with GIC in 1994,
computers could be used for certain tasks which helped ease
work pressure.
Post
1994: Front office computerisation
As per the agreement with GIC in 1994, all companies were
allowed to have their own IT plan and this was extended to
the front office as well. This meant that OICL could put a
system in place in their divisional offices whereby they could
share data. Jain points out that this was also a landmark
development in the sense that for the first time, the company
could take independent decisions with regards to the development
of software or hardware. Another important development that
took place at this time was the increased focus on the customer.
In April 1994, the front office computerisation was done on
a pilot basis at the company’s branch office at New Delhi.
Initially, the software was developed in-house and implemented
in few branch offices to assess the response and effectiveness
along with the limitation of such a project. However, the
size and complexity of the project forced to the company to
outsource it.
Front office computerisation was introduced in a phased manner
in the organisation in terms of number of offices as well
as number of operational modules in the system. Currently,
the software caters to underwriting of all classes of business
and is capable of calculating premium and generating policy
schedule, besides keeping track of claims. Provision has also
been made for data extraction and transfer.
To encourage the usage of IT within the organisation, the
company provided for a computer increment in its MoU with
the unions. While this in no way meant an increase in the
number of PCs, it helped motivate employees and facilitate
the acceptance of IT. In order to promote greater user friendliness,
the company switched to the Windows 3.11 operating system
across all its 33 offices.
In terms of connectivity, OICL now has limited connectivity
through WAN—almost all divisional, branch and regional
offices are connected with the head office via e-mail. Jain
adds that this has improved communication between various
offices spread all over India. The regional offices and head
office are connected using a LAN.
Leveraging its IT infrastructure, the company launched a new
initiative dubbed ‘Issuance of Motor Vehicles Policy
from the Auto Dealers show-room’ in May 2001 from its
Pune office. The initiative has already been extended to its
Indore and Bangalore offices and is expected to be rolled
out in Mumbai and Ahmedabad soon. The company is also planning
to provide similar facilities at New Delhi, Patna, Chennai
and Cochin before the start of the next financial year.
The company has now developed certain modules in-house such
as the reinsurance accounts system, payroll system, PF systems,
pension system, investment accounts, central accounts (consisting
of corporate account, preparation of revenue accounts and
balance sheets), housing loan system etc. All this also translates
into the independence of the IT team for their in-house requirements.
Sensing the need for a Web presence, the company developed
a website last year which provides details of its products,
a premium calculation chart for popular policies and location
of offices along with contact numbers. The site also has a
special section for employees.
Future
plans
With increasing competition, Jain adds that IT needs to be
harnessed in effort to get an edge in the market. “Not
only is there a need to consolidate our business acumen gained
over the years, but we also need a solution which will help
us introduce new polices and provide up-to-date information
to customers,” he says. With this objective in mind,
the company has been building a centralised repository of
business data, which it later plans to Web-enable in order
to allow its agents, surveyors, policy holders and management
gain access to.
The company is also in the process of implementing an end-to-end
solution, which will not only establish connectivity with
its various branches, but also help it introduce new initiatives
online. OICL is in the process of finalising a deal with a
company to this effect. Jain adds that the deal will have
three phases. In the first phase, which will start once the
deal is signed, connectivity will be provided to regional
and branch offices through LANs in 50 pilot sites. In the
second phase, the company plans to extend it to other sites.
Once the first phase is completed, OICL plans to start looking
at other issues such as operations on the Web, call centres
and other Interactive front-office requirements. According
to Jain, the entire effort is make it a customer friendly
system, which translates into customer satisfaction, the key
for staying ahead.
Besides this, OICL is also planing to make enhancements to
its website in the coming months by adding more useful contents
for public, standard information for business partners, press
releases and advertisements from different offices. Also on
the cards are plans for the creation of an intranet, which
will serve as a one-stop information delivery point for employees.
Once this is done, the company also plans to start its B2B
offerings. Says Jain, “Every customer you go to or who
comes to you comes with a specific requirement. Each product
has to be customised as per his/her requirements and this
is what we plan to achieve through this solution.”
In order to facilitate data management, there are plans to
consolidate its server requirements and opt for high-performance
servers. OICL is also planning to develop a VPN for better
communication, regular data transfer from decentralised offices
and providing connectivity for business operations from centralised
offices.
Jain feels that though it is very early to talk about the
impact of IT on OICL, as it is still in the process of implementing
solutions, there are a lot of other subtle advantages which
have made work for employees easier over the years. “I
believe that besides reduction in time and workload, there
has also been a fantastic improvement in quality of data.
No longer de we have to worry about the amount of errors,”
he says.
|
