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Winner
Working wonders at HDFC Standard Life
HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company (HDFCSL) has implemented
a Workflow on Demand and Enterprise Retrieval System to improve customer service,
reduce cost of operations, and have the flexibility to quickly launch new products.
 There
are 14 major private insurance companies pushing their products in the Indian
market at present. With such competition it is clear that these companies need
to position their products and services in a more impressive way. HDFC Standard
Life Insurance Company (HDFCSL) also experienced this competitive pressure and
felt a need to retain its customers. Its processes were constrained by high
turnaround and low efficiencies; lack of process monitoring, process control
and tracking; and excessive paper work and manual operations.
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We decided to be different by getting
closer to the customer, offering a wider set of personalised services,
and improving our brand image by innovatively utilising internal resources
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Recalls Sunil Rawlani, Head of IT at HDFCSL, “The way
we decided to be different was by improving customer proximity, increasing personalised
services, and improving brand image by innovative utilisation of internal resources.”
Following this, HDFCSL implemented Workflow on Demand and Enterprise Retrieval
System (Wonders), an Enterprise workflow system integrated with a document imaging
system. This system is integrated with the other existing front-end and back-end
systems at the company, transforming the backbone and enabling process automation.
Pain and relief
A typical day at an insurance company begins with the branch receiving a new
proposal form, following which a physical file is created, with comments added
on physical documents. Agent reports are created manually, and cases are logged
in Excel. The status is then updated in a customer contact system, and the file
is sent for processing where it is scrutinised and data entry is made in multiple
systems. Work is passed on to different people through physical movement of
the file in the back-office.
After this, the underwriter processes the case by referring information from
multiple systems to physical files and notes of older cases. Underwriting notes
are maintained manually in different coloured files to differentiate between
non-underwriting, underwriting and medical cases. Follow-up with customers is
also done using multiple systems.
Rawlani explains, “Ours is a paper-intensive business, and new businesses,
policy services and claims ended up making things worse. We have always looked
upon IT as an enabler. With this belief we found Wonders as a solution to our
requirements. Wonders assisted us in standardisation of documents for mapping
into the document management system. It has helped us to get rid of paper by
using images instead. Moreover, all the operations are automated making the
processes more efficient and effective.”
| Workflow Engine |
TIBCO Staffware version 9.0 |
| Imaging |
Image Services version 3.6 ESE and Capture 4.1 from
Filenet |
| Systems Integrator |
Siemens Information Systems Limited |
HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Ltd is
one of India’s leading private life insurance companies, offering as
it does a range of individual and group insurance solutions. It is a joint
venture between the Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC
Ltd.), India’s housing finance institution, and one of the subsidiaries
of Standard Life Plc, that provides financial services in the United Kingdom.
The company’s strengths include:
- Financial Expertise : As a joint venture
of leading financial services groups, HDFC Standard Life has the financial
expertise required to manage long-term investments.
- A wide range of solutions: The Company
has a range of individual and group solutions, which can be customised
to specific needs. The group solutions have been designed to offer complete
flexibility combined with a low charging structure.
- Track record so far : HDFC Standard Life’s
cumulative premium income, including the first year premiums and renewal
premiums is Rs. 1,532.21 crores April-March 2005 - 06. The company has
covered over 1.6 million individuals of whom over 5,00,000 have been
covered through its group business tie-ups.
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Doing Wonders with IT
Wonders was finalised after a vendor selection process including
user requirement analysis, vendor response analysis and rating, final recommendation,
and POC evaluation based on key use cases, reference checks, site visits and
business process identification. “We chalked out detailed deployment, implementation
and infrastructure plans, after which we found Tibco Staffware version 9.0 and
Filenet’s Image Services version 3.6 ESE and Capture 4.1 suitable for HDFCSL.
Siemens Information Systems, being a partner of Filenet and Staffware, was chosen
as a systems integrator,” informs Rawlani.
Wonders is based on a framework consisting of generic functions
and database design which forms the foundation that has been designed to enable
easy addition of new business processes and also allow multiple versions of
the same processes to run simultaneously.
Today, for processing purposes, users in HDFCSL log into Wonders and pick up
cases from the inbox. Users process cases by viewing digital images of the files.
Underwriters capture all notes in Wonders, and view information required for
processing cases. They use customised audit trails to check the current status
of the case, or the path traversed by the case, to arrive at the current status.
Real-time reports are available online to monitor current workloads.
An integrated document management system helps users with features such as document
access rights, document structure definition, and the facility to convert multiple
images into a simple image. Wonders provides on-demand MIS generation, and provides
deadlines while awaiting responses. The workflow has the business logic to route
the cases electronically to pre-determined selected items.
| Company |
HDFC Standard Life Insurance |
| Solution |
Wonders, or Workflow on Demand and Enterprise Retrieval
System |
| Project started |
May 2003 |
| Project completed |
January 2006 |
| Aim of the implementation |
To improve efficiency, process monitoring,
process control and tracking; improve customer proximity; increase personalised
services; improve brand image by innovative utilisation of internal resources |
| Challenges faced |
- Standardisation of documents for mapping into
the document management system
- Well-defined path for every process
- Working with images vs paper
- Requirement of additional resources initially
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| Major benefits |
- Productivity improvement due to reduction in
complaints from sales, instant retrieval of information, and increased
capacity
- Reduction of average policy insurance time
- Faster response leading to high customer satisfaction
- Improved and consistent customer service
- Increased revenues
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Technically speaking
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Ours is a paper-intensive business,
and new business, policy services and claims ended up making things worse.
Wonders has helped us get rid of paper by using images instead
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Wonders has an n-tier modular architecture with a Web-based front-end. This
reduces effort in maintenance, scalability, flexibility and loosely-coupled
integration. The implementation of Wonders technically involved a number of
innovations such as a Web-based front-end which is customised to improve the
productivity of users.
The GUI provides dual monitor support so that the electronic
form image can be shown alongside the data entry form on separate monitors.
HDFCSL is using a 15” and a 17” monitor for this purpose. The 17”
monitor is turned at 90-degrees, letting users see a scanned image in its entirety
without having to scroll. By using two smaller monitors instead of one large
20”-25” monitor, the company has made significant savings.
Guided data entry with the relevant images being shown automatically improves
the speed of this process. A document tree hierarchy is also provided to navigate
through documents. Document image retrieval is automated, and hot-key functions
are provided to reduce key strokes. Says Rawlani, “Users can open multiple
windows to access information, but they are only shown the functions and queues
to which they have access. This has helped us safeguard the confidential data
of our customers.”
- Successful implementation of performance indicators
mapped to key result areas.
- The project was executed keeping ROI as an important
parameter which is appreciated and the results are good.
- The technology used is state-of-the-art.
Tips
- The project could have been finished at least
six months earlier to gain a better ROI and early bird advantage.
- Use of public key infrastructure (PKI) based
security would ensure secure access to the centralised database of ‘WONDERS’
which is critical.
- Seamless data flow from WONDERS to the Transaction
Processing Engine could be explored for further enhancement.
—Jury member,
Satish Naralkar,
MD & CEO, NSE.IT
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He concludes, “After observing the success of Wonders we have planned to
automate the remaining processes in our organisation and have decided to go
in for customer-centric value-adds to the existing solution. Our future innovation
strategy includes the implementation of a real-time dashboard with key operational
and business health indicators that will help the top management monitor and
gain on cost arbitrage or revenue pools.”
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