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its history,
advantages over conventional
types of Digital Media,
Metrics for Effectiveness Measurement and
tools to analyze its performance.
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Importance of real-time customer interaction in digital banking
Video Banking goes Prime Time
The opportunity for video-enabled interaction to transform retail banking
In order to make your social media marketing efforts more effective, here are some of the do’s and don'ts mentioned below.
Follow these tips to maximize your time and get the most out of your social media efforts.
A presentation given at the PR Consultants Group (PRCG) annual meeting. Include:
-Perspectives of the PR tech landscape
- Review: 5 all-in-one PR tools
-Briefly: other all-in-one PR software tools
-Innovations in PR tech to watch
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Ads Session - for the Startups in AssamSyed Mohsin Raja
Facebook and Instagram Ads session for the startups, held on 13th Nov 2022 at Assam Startup - The Nest, Ambari, Guwahati, Assam.
The session was organized by LinkedinLocalGuwahati.
The session covered all the aspects of Facebook advertising ranging from Categories to Models, Pixel to iOS14 updates, targeting to audience types etc.
Further, by the end of the slides you will find some really helpful tips that the presenter acquired over the years while serving his clients across the globe.
Impact of Social Media of Student’s Academic Performanceinventionjournals
The focus of the study is to determine the effect of growing use of social media sites on the academic performance of the students of universities and colleges. On the basis of random sampling a sample of 300 students was selected. Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection.97% questionnaire received back from respondents on which descriptive statistics apply for data analysis. Results indicate that the effect of social media can be positive as in this study closely determined the real effect of social media sites. In recent time itencourage the carrier and future of students’ .The social media sites like Facebook, twitter, Google+ .And Skype capturethe attention of students for study and affecting positively their academic Grade points.
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Maintaining public relations and therefore having a sound public relations strategy is important for any company be it an extremely small one or a large MNC with thousands of employees.
Here is a nine step process that will help you plan your public relations strategy perfectly and most productively.
A guest lecture presented to undergraduate advertising students at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communications.
The lecture was given by Sensis founder and President Jose Villa on October 10, 2011
Sharing my deck that I presented to a group of Bankers who wanted to have insights on Marketing and Branding. This is not a deep dive presentation on tacticals, but the psychology behind each political speech, campaign and products that are being sold to us every single day, either on our digital device or in the brick and mortar shops. They all rely on the same principal of MAKE YOURSELF LOOK GOOD, MAKE OTHERS LOOK EVIL.
Measuring What Matters with Google AnalyticsTechSoup
Google Analytics is a free web analytics program for your site that takes less than 30 minutes to install. In roughly the same time it takes to watch an episode of your favorite sitcom, you can be learning the what, where, how, and when of the activities on your site. (The "why" is up to you.)
In this webinar, we will walk through
- What Google Analytics is
- How Google Analytics works
- Key terms
- How you can use these learnings to move the needle of your organization forward
Brand Ambassador Program Blueprint by Britt MichaelianBritt Michaelian
The Brand Ambassador Program Blueprint by Britt Michaelian is a step-by-step presentation designed to help small businesses and emerging brands to understand how successful brand ambassador programs work and how to get started with a campaign.
The Impact of Social Media on Women's Self-Image and Self-RepresentationPamela Rutledge
Presentation from APA National Convention in San Diego: the impact of social media on women's self-image and self-representation. Part of a symposium co-sponsored by Division 46 (Media Psychology) and Division 35 (Psychology of Women) by Dr. Pamela Rutledge
Software Modernization Is Essential for Businesses: Assessing the Cost of Ina...Velan Apps
Discover assessing the cost of inaction in software modernization and why updating your software is important for your business success!
Software Modernization has become an inescapable component of the smart digital transformation that is underway in all enterprises across the world. Businesses must modernize their legacy programs as they grow increasingly vulnerable to the harmful consequences of obsolete software.
Given the aforementioned circumstances, it is critical for all businesses to address the legacy modernization phase, which presents clear obstacles such as evaluating the cost of inaction and risk reduction. In this post, we will explain how to decrease expenses and assessing the cost of inaction in software modernization.
Why Organizations Stay With Old Software Systems for Longer than they Should.
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In any case, it’s prudent to take a step back and evaluate your personal expenses. Knowing how much your legacy program truly costs might help you put the expense of a software modernization project into perspective.
The Three Ways to Modernize Software and Applications
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Rewrite.
First, you can rebuild the application’s code using a contemporary and dependable programming language. This strategy frequently results in overestimated costs and time periods, so thoroughly review your project before deciding to change the code.
Replace.
This solution requires you to replace the entire system with a newly developed application. However, key components and functionalities from the previous program will be needed in a different form for the new application to function properly. When replacing an app, the amount of complexity might increase until you reach a final version.
Reuse.
The third option is to reuse the old legacy program while updating it for improved functionality. This strategy will comprise a step-by-step process, with testing conducted after each phase.
https://velanapps.com/blog/assessing-the-cost-of-inaction-in-software-modernization/
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Instead of buying and hoping for the best, we can use data science to help us predict which products may be good fits for us. It includes various function programs to do the above mentioned tasks.
Data file handling has been effectively used in the program.
The automated cosmetic shop management system should deal with the automation of general workflow and administration process of the shop. The main processes of the system focus on customer's request where the system is able to search the most appropriate products and deliver it to the customers. It should help the employees to quickly identify the list of cosmetic product that have reached the minimum quantity and also keep a track of expired date for each cosmetic product. It should help the employees to find the rack number in which the product is placed.It is also Faster and more efficient way.
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Strong technology manager who excels at understanding customer requirements and who utilizes technology and best practices to achieve company goals; utilizing existing applications to streamline and improve performance transparency. Extremely passionate with respect to process improvement, implementing best practices and accurate reporting resulting in actively being sought after by clients. International and domestic expertise in process improvement and application deployment. Repeatedly reduced costs increased productivity and expanded marketability using a technological approach to implementing software solutions across multicultural environments.
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De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
1. Digital Business
De-risking Life and Annuity Policy
Admin System Conversions
Highly effective policy administration system (PAS) conversions are those that
address the involved people, processes and technologies. Life and annuity
(L&A) insurance companies can improve success rates in PAS conversions
when they emphasize these three dimensions as keys to the organizational
change initiative.
Executive summary
A legacy policy administration system (PAS) conversion
carries multiple challenges that should be addressed
by focusing on people, processes and technologies.
Conversion programs include many dimensions, from
product , policy migrations, interface integration and
process changes to user training and operational
readiness — all in a single initiative.
Interdependencies among these dimensions further
multiply complexity. Risks and challenges characterize
each stage of the conversion journey — from establishing
the business case to planning, scoping, designing and
implementing the program.
Success rates improve and risk is reduced when life and
annuity (L&A) insurance companies treat these programs
as organizational change initiatives and not solely as
an IT modernization project. Three key success criteria
typically govern the success or failure of PAS conversions
with success hinging on meeting expectations for time,
cost and reduced risks.
Cognizant has successfully completed more than 30
PAS conversions over the past 10 years. This white paper
shares our perspective on the right way to undertake
these programs, infusing best practices from each of the
technology, people, and process dimensions.
Cognizant 20-20 Insights
March 2019
2. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
2 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
Figure 1
PAS conversion program success criteria
Achieving ROI
as planned
Fulfillment of goals
established upfront
1
Meeting
expectations
End user acceptance
of target state
2
Ease of
transition
Ease of transition for
operations & IT to the new PAS
3
Implied
expectations
Seamless migration to
target platform — products,
policies and processes
Faster, cheaper
risk-mitigated
conversion
While automation tools and solution accelerators
can significantly increase accuracy and speed, and
contain costs, conversion’s success mostly rides
on its impact on end users before, during and after
the journey. The manner in which the target state
is achieved is as important as the target state itself.
Therein lies the significance of the processes used
to arrive at the envisioned target state.
While automation tools and solution
accelerators can significantly increase accuracy
and speed, and contain costs, conversion’s
success mostly rides on its impact on end users
before, during and after the journey.
3. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
3 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
Technology
Adopt pre-configured ecosystems
with industry-standard features
Most policy administration systems have been built
over decades. Understandably, replacing them
can be a difficult and lengthy process, especially
when faced with tight budget constraints — all
while ensuring minimal impact on end users.
It’s prudent, therefore, to adopt solutions that
can increase speed and accuracy. The inherent
complexity and size of the endeavor calls for pre-
built or pre-configured target platforms to host
and administer in-scope products and policies. This
approach helps to reduce program risks, costs and
turnaround times.
By using a pre-configured platform, implementation
teams can address functionality gaps for the new
platform rather than build policy administration
processes and rules from scratch. We recommend
easy to configure, flexible platforms that offer a wide
range of templates for the base product and riders
for cloning and enhancements.
A pre-configured platform also offers working
processes and provisions for obtaining end user
feedback early. This can significantly expedite
training for the operations team as well.
A pre-configured PAS should also provide “out-of-
the-box” interface integration solutions to increase
speed to market and reduce costs and risks. Policy
administration systems integrate with dozens of
interfaces. Most L&A companies share common
internal and external interfaces. Examples include
accounting ledgers, reinsurance feeds, national
change of address (NCOA) feeds, commissionable
event extracts, and regulatory compliance
interfaces, such as Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC) and anti-money laundering (AML).
A pre-built toolkit for rapidly onboarding products
and policies onto the target platform is another
valuable project accelerator. Pre-existing data-
mapping and transformation rules, rate loaders,
and template-driven product onboarders are
among the most important conversion tools. They
help to improve quality, handle high volumes,
Figure 2
Foundational elements: Best practices to adopt in a PAS conversion
Technology
Process
> Pre-configured assets for head start
> Automation tools for efficiency
> Cognitive tools for insights & accuracy
> Accelerators to manage scale
> Stakeholder engagement and alignment
> Collaboration and consensus building
> Onboarding and preserving SMEs
> Plan to meet end user expectations
> Business first, risk-mitigated approach
> Adaptive/flexible to accept change
> Iterative, evidence driven
> Shift-left principles
People
4. Figure 3
Scaling the conversion ramp
Ramp to onboard products & policies
Legacy 1 Legacy 2 Legacy 3 Legacy 4
Insurance PAS
conversion capabilities
New PAS platform
Cognizant 20-20 Insights
4 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
Building everything from scratch is no longer a viable option for
PAS conversions. Adopting a pre-configured PAS ecosystem
component that includes pre-built conversion accelerators is the
ideal approach for L&A insurers.
reduce turnaround times, and avoid “repeat”
conversion costs by automating the bulk of the
project processes.
Building everything from scratch is no longer a
viable option for PAS conversions. Adopting a
pre-configured PAS ecosystem component that
includes pre-built conversion accelerators is the
ideal approach for L&A insurers.
Automation tools for legacy
PAS conversions
While every PAS conversion poses unique
challenges, there are also many similarities
that provide opportunities to adopt reusable
automation tools to more efficiently complete
repetitive, rule-driven and high-volume tasks.
Reusable automation tools and accelerators also
free up the valuable time of subject matter experts
(SMEs) and other key resources, allowing them
to focus on more complex program problems
or roadblocks.
Scaling the conversion ramp
By envisioning a ramp for escalating PAS
conversion capabilities, L&A insurers can more
clearly realize their conversion goals. This
conversion ramp includes reusable, plug-and-
play enablers equipped with automation tools,
templates and process frameworks to expedite the
legacy PAS conversion from start to finish.
A typical legacy conversion program includes
at least four to five process tracks. Each track is
a distinct project and presents opportunities to
reduce costs and risks through automation and
reusable components.
These tracks are the building blocks that construct
the conversion ramp.
5. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
5 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
For system integration partners and Software as
a Service (SaaS)/Business Process as a Service
(BPaaS) platform providers, not having good ramp
capabilities should be a disqualifier.
Applicability of cognitive
technologies
Tasks that require human perceptual skills can
now be automated using cognitive technologies.
Cognitive technologies help overcome the
traditional trade-offs between speed, cost and
quality. A legacy PAS conversion program includes
several tasks that require managing massive data
volumes. Conventional automation often cannot
address the more complex data validation tasks.
Such tasks typically require time-consuming
human analysis, which is error prone, due to the
sheer data volume and variation.
Early detection of hidden business (product and
process) rules, insights and requirements can
significantly reduce risks and challenges. In addition
to providing early detection, cognitive tools can
play a valuable role in optimizing approaches,
further reducing costs and risks in a conversion,
right from the early stages of the journey.
Cognitive tools also expose hidden rules and
provide insights from legacy data in the policy
administration ecosystem. They can be configured
to monitor and study data exchanges with the PAS
using upstream and downstream interface systems.
By monitoring large data samples over time, these
tools can provide metadata information related
to the data-feed exchanges and, importantly,
the hidden rules that humans often miss during
conventional requirement gathering.
Track Building blocks of PAS conversion ramp
Data
migration
Source-agnostic, neutral file-based data capture to simplify extraction Reusable asset
Pre-existing, reusable data mapping of the neutral file to the target Reusable asset
Data onboarder reusable ETL (extract, transform, load) engine for target Automation
Automated data audit compare process Automation
Data profiling/rule repository Reusable asset
Product
configuration
Product grid and rate capture templates Reusable asset
L&A product calculation modeling tools Reusable asset
Product onboarding tools: automated product configuration and cloning Automation
Adaptive implementation methodology Best practice
Testing
Policy lifecycle test scenario repository Reusable asset
Automated regression test bed Automation
Test-data generator for policy lifecycle testing Automation
Integration
Pre-configured PAS interfaces Reusable asset
Pre-configured correspondence extracts and reports Reusable asset
PAS operation data store design constructs Best practice
Requirement
management
Automated business rule extraction from legacy system Automation
Product and process specification template Reusable asset
Agile and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe): Iterative methodology with prototyping Best practice
Requirement traceability matrix Reusable asset
6. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
6 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
The table below depicts a few examples of how cognitive technologies can expose hidden requirements.
Policy lapse and
grace processing rules
Monitor a large set of data feeds/exchanges and expose rules from the data feeds generated out of a legacy PAS that
hosts term and traditional life insurance policies. The exposed rules can be used to re-examine or supplement business
rules obtained through conventional methods, such as documentation or SMEs.
1:USE
CASE
Conventional requirement gathering: Business rules obtained from existing documents or end users.
1. Lapse rule: Available product documentation says policies are given a 30-day grace period before the policy lapses.
2. Paid-in-advance vs paid-in-arrears rule: Actuarial memos suggest that the products in the source system require
modal premiums to be paid in advance and not in arrears.
3. Non-forfeiture options (NFO), such as a premium holiday rule, are not applicable for the block of policies.
Important exceptions and variations of the above rules can remain hidden if additional methods of
validating or supplementing are not applied. These surface during data migration audits and lead to
significant rework, causing delays and cost escalations.
Risk
Scan the billing/grace/lapse event-related data feeds over a period for the PAS, using cognitive
technology tools. These feeds will contain date elements, such as lapse date, paid-to date and premium
due, reinstatement premiums, and premium due date policy status.
The cognitive tools can derive the following rules by monitoring large samples of such data feeds as:
| What is the grace period rule for every plan under that system? Is it always 30 days or does it vary
by plan (30, 45, or 60 days)?
| Are NFO options (premium holiday) actually present?
| Are there policies in the system that allow premiums to be paid in arrears?
Suggested
mitigation,
leveraging
cognitive
tools
Commission
interface requirements
Monitor and harvest information from the data exchanges between the PAS and a commission system. Understand all
data exchange triggers for commissionable events (automatic premium loan, premium holiday) using monitoring tools
for a large data sample over a pre-defined period.
2:USE
CASE
Conventional requirement gathering: Rules obtained from interface documents or application libraries.
1. Existing Interface documents for commissions provide a list of triggers for which data is sent from the PAS
2. A copybook/field list is obtained from the legacy source application libraries.
Outdated Interface documents do not typically contain all the interface exchange triggers as well as
variations. These surface during end-to-end testing with the surround systems such as commissions.
Risk
Use cognitive tools to create a report by scanning data exchanges over a period of time or from existing
data archives and data lakes. The report provided by such tools can cover the following aspects of
interface exchanges:
| What are the business transaction events for which data is exchanged? Are there any variations by
products and plans?
| What are the insurance data attributes that are being exchanged? In this case, the complete list of
commissionable events includes charge backs.
| What insurance data attributes are mandatory vs. optional in the exchange for a certain business
transaction event?
Suggested
mitigation,
leveraging
cognitive
tools
7. Cognizant 20-20 Insights
7 / De-risking Life and Annuity Policy Admin System Conversions
Most emerging and existing cognitive
technologies focus on enabling business
growth goals. The insurance Industry needs
more out-of-the-box cognitive tools to
simplify legacy transformation and
conversion programs.
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Incremental development ensures that end users can properly
acclimate to the new PAS. As system requirements evolve
during the project, users and SMEs receive early and recurring
demonstrations and walkthroughs of the “to be” system.
Process
Shift-left strategy catches
problems early
A shift-left strategy can help organizations detect
problems early in the application and system
integration testing phase. This strategy can also
be applied more broadly across a legacy PAS
conversion. A shift-left approach provides for:
1. An appropriate source-system study to ensure
due diligence before conversion planning.
2. Iterative development, with early system
prototypes and demonstrations for end users.
Appropriate source-system study
A critical common challenge for conversions is the
need to understand comprehensive source system
behaviors, referred to as business rules or logic.
This challenge is further exacerbated if SMEs are
unavailable and documentation is outdated.
To address this challenge, organizations should
first gather all the critical facts and insights
from product, policy, process and application
information. With this essential knowledge, teams
can then properly scope, strategize and plan the
implementation. To more easily manage and
analyze for commonality and gaps, this information
should be captured in standardized product grids
and templates. By maintaining a requirement-
traceability matrix, teams can more effectively
identify the impact across components.
This organized and comprehensive view of all
pertinent information facilitates more productive
deep-dive discussions, planning and stakeholder
consensus building. Early, detailed deep dives
are more productive, revealing distinct aspects
and exceptions that can be addressed to prevent
defects and rework.
A focused system study typically runs about six
to eight weeks. Key areas to study include the
legacy source application and repository of facts
and insights about the product, data, system, and
related business processes.
This early study helps identify hidden rules, key
insights and system limitations to support the
proper scope, strategy, and plan, and prevent
rework and delays in later stages.
Iterative development, with early system
prototypes and demonstrations for end users
Incremental development ensures that end users
can properly acclimate to the new PAS. As system
requirements evolve during the project, users and
SMEs receive early and recurring demonstrations
and walkthroughs of the “to be” system.
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An iterative development model conforms well to
“shift left” principles.
Because PAS conversions can take several months
or quarters, stakeholder confidence can erode,
hindering program success. Scope creep and
requirement changes are expected to occur in such
programs. L&A companies and implementation
partners cannot realistically pre-plan and pre-
decide every aspect of the project during the
planning and requirement stage.
This is why it’s important for end users and other
stakeholders to review and test the work product
early in the cycle and continuously throughout. This
increases stakeholder confidence and encourages
feedback to help identify missing requirements —
affording the implementation team more lead time
to correct errors.
Avoid using a conventional and predictive Waterfall
approach, which is a linear, sequential methodology
that requires the completion of each step before
the next one can begin. Waterfall doesn’t account
for gathering lean requirements, early prototyping,
or feedback.
Rather, an Adaptive Implementation Methodology
accepts that project scope can and will change due
to various reasons, such as changes in personnel,
business process and priorities, as it divides the
scope into smaller pieces for iterative deployment.
Requirement changes are then captured and
implemented as a planned backlog.
Adopting Agile-like methodologies, which demand
that self-sufficient teams run Scrums, can also
present challenges. Limited SME involvement and
centralized decision-making would affect progress.
Therefore, select an Adaptive Implementation
Methodology that retains Waterfall’s overarching
simplicity and incorporates iterative development
and testing processes as part of the framework.
One key objective is to provide an early, continuous,
and incremental working prototype. The ability
to deliver small units for testing, review and
refinement elevates stakeholder confidence and
helps address scope creep and design changes
where needed, without causing schedule slippage.
When the product, interfaces and data migration
components are complete, it’s time to begin
integrated testing. Initiate end-to-end testing on
the converted data, which includes the full-volume
data audit. This iterative development and testing
approach mostly addresses scope creep and
interdependencies. Any residual problems are then
corrected at this stage.
Up next is the extensive migration rehearsal, or
dry run, and expedited user-acceptance testing.
User acceptance is accomplished quickly when
an iterative development approach is followed, as
most defects and user expectations are addressed
during development, testing and user demo
iterations.
Due diligence, planning and
integrated program management
PAS conversion planning must not occur in an IT
silo. There are many workflows, stakeholders and
interdependencies to manage. On the next page,
we outline a few fundamental planning guidelines.
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Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Break apart into smaller, manageable goals
Program managers should weave smaller
milestones into a logical sequence to arrive at the
final outcome. This requires diligent planning, as
well as providing for contingencies and unknowns.
Smaller, key milestones act as tollgates for
subsequent phases.
Develop one integrated plan
Establish key milestones and dependencies within
and between tracks early in the process. A few
examples of this include:
❙❙ Before testing policy modal premium
calculations and plan rates, it’s necessary to have
a representative sample of migrated policies (as
well as all necessary coverage components) in a
test environment.
❙❙ Policy lifecycle processing configurations -- such
as death, surrender, loan, and lapse -- must be in
order before completing end-to-end testing of
accounting and commission systems.
❙❙ An adequate amount of converted data is
required for end-to-end testing with interfaces.
❙❙ Data audits of policy financial information
depend on calculation configurations and
rate loads.
With many tracks to manage, it’s important
to develop one integrated project plan that
includes individual track-level plans with
associated milestones and dependencies. Identify
dependencies and milestones that are both internal
and external to each track.
This enables program management and all
stakeholders to remain in sync with priorities,
expectations, and the true status of the program.
Program managers should
weave smaller milestones into
a logical sequence to arrive at
the final outcome. This requires
diligent planning, as well as
providing for contingencies
and unknowns. Smaller, key
milestones act as tollgates for
subsequent phases.
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People
Manage end-user expectations and sponsor confidence
PAS conversions can easily derail if business sponsors and end users lose confidence in the program’s
progress. Cost overruns and extended timelines can further erode the business case.
Seek to understand what’s causing confidence to erode. Common reasons and possible solutions include:
Reasons for erosion of stakeholder
and sponsor confidence
Solution constructs —
best practices
1
Implementation partners’ lack of understanding of business
dependencies and absence of consensus among stakeholders.
Carry out adequate due diligence
Plan deep dive with stakeholders
2
Implementation partners’ heavy dependency on SMEs for
requirement, product and operations knowledge.
Onboard aptly skilled resources
Implement solution accelerators for
requirements
3
Error-prone, lengthy documentation and requirement gathering
demands extensive SME involvement for reviews and approvals.
Adopt Agile-like methodologies
4
Lack of evidence and metrics of a working “to-be” system from
the early stages creates doubts about true status and progress of
the implementation among sponsors and stakeholders.
Adopt adaptive methodologies
Manage using one integrated plan
5
Late detection of gaps and requirements leads to rework, delays
and missed key milestones.
Conduct adequate system study
Adopt shift-left best practices
6
Unavailability of an early, working “to-be” system with meaningful
data for end users to train, test, and provide feedback leads to
mismatched expectations during later stages.
Adopt adaptive methodologies
Perform system prototyping and demos
No single solution can eliminate all of these problems. However, a set of solution constructs, best practices
and methodologies can help mitigate these issues and ensure that stakeholders remain confident in the
program’s progress and success.
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Pre-implementation prep with operations and
policy administration peripheral teams
Failing to diligently complete necessary readiness and preparatory planning with all impacted stakeholders
can lead to a variety of challenges, even after the conversion “go live” with interfacing systems, customer
correspondence, and policy servicing functions. The likely result may include poor customer experience
and missed SLAs for policy servicing.
The table below shares two examples of conversion issues and their impact on policy servicing.
Duplicate premium notice delivery
Failed remittances due to lack of updates
to peripherals
A failure to analyze the impact of output processing
timing gaps, like correspondence triggers, led to
duplicate premium notices being sent out to customers
for whom the dividend was not sufficient to pay the
modal premium. The legacy policy administration
system sent a notice, and the new PAS also generated
another one for the same policies immediately after the
conversion cutover.
The legacy PAS generated notices 15 days before the due
date, but the new system was designed and configured to
generate this trigger on the due date — a known gap.
IT and policy-servicing operations failed to adequately
plan and collaborate to identify the impacted cases
upfront. The failure to stop the duplicate correspondence
from the new system led to a higher volume of inquiries,
as some customers previously sent checks for the
shortfall.
A lack of rehearsals and inclusion of interfacing peripheral
systems prevented premium remittance inbound feeds
to reach the right policy administration system for
processing.
The L&A company maintained an index of policy
numbers for the PAS of record in a separate system. As
blocks of policies migrated from the legacy PAS to the
new system and some underwent renumbering, the
indexing system should have been updated with the
new PAS identifier and list of policy numbers for those
renumbered.
This issue was caused by a lack of end-to-end rehearsals
with peripheral systems and a failure to create a common
detailed implementation plan for all impacted systems.
As a result, the policy servicing and IT teams manually
applied the failed remittance transactions.
Post-conversion fallouts have common root causes:
Commonly identified root cause of conversion fallouts
A
Failure to adequately engage
operations and peripheral system
SMEs in implementation planning for
the go-live.
One-time conversion tasks (before and after) for the operations
and surround-system interdependencies can remain undetected if
they are not addressed during go-live planning. These insights can
prevent major fallouts.
B
Inadequate rehearsals or trial
runs with all peripheral teams and
stakeholders.
End-to-end rehearsals with all participants are mandatory.
Neglecting to do so can cause one-time conversion cutover tasks
to remain under-planned, under-rehearsed and missed, causing
delays in the go-live or other fallouts.
C
Inadequate impact analysis upfront
for the conversion cutover scenarios.
Migrating rules, data and processes from one system to another on a
certain cutover date will always result in overlaps, special processing
and one-time considerations that need to be factored in during
planning.
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Ensuring a soft landing and seamless transition are
among the most important success criteria for any
PAS conversion. Below are best practices that we
follow for all such projects to ensure adoption and
proper preparation for the go-live:
3. In go-live planning, ensure the right degree
of engagement among policy-servicing and
interface-system stakeholders.
4. Detail the planning and tracking of all one-time
tasks by IT and operations before, during and
after the conversion.
5. Rehearse end-to-end dry runs for the
conversion; include IT and operations tasks.
6. Have all operations, user, and peripheral system
stakeholders participate in conversion rehearsals
(trial runs) with the right volume of policies;
enact the same steps by following an hour-by-
hour plan.
7. Maintain a policy watch list and a list of tasks
tagged against each such policy.
Our approach requires high participation from
policy-servicing operations and peripheral-system
teams. We have found that early preventive
participation is a better alternative than later,
required corrective participation.
Stakeholder engagement and
consensus building on scope, strategy
and planning
End user buy-in and insights
The due diligence and planning phase must include
active stakeholder participation in planning,
detailed scoping, and migration strategy using
deep-dive sessions to obtain insights and approvals
on strategy decisions, detailed scope, and planning.
Early deep-dive scoping and planning workshops
with all impacted IT and business stakeholders will
elicit important insights and uncover risks. Then
the team is ready to revisit the strategy, re-plan
risk-mitigation steps, and conduct a walkthrough
with stakeholders to gain consensus and allay any
fears. These early insights also help identify required
corrections and clarify stakeholder dependencies,
roles, and responsibilities.
Conclusion
A PAS conversion is a major undertaking that
requires intense focus on the people, processes and
technologies involved. Unfortunately, there’s no
single “silver bullet” among the many available tools,
accelerators and approaches. As we explored, while
automation tools and accelerators can significantly
reduce project complexity and boost speed, people
and processes play an equally important role. By
engaging with the right implementation partners,
who are well experienced in PAS conversions,
L&A insurers can ensure a successful conversion
and mitigate risks by adopting the best set of
conversion accelerators, skilled resource pools,
and holistic solution frameworks to serve their
organizations.
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About the authors
Todd Eyler
Platform Leader, Insurance Practice, Cognizant Insurance
Todd Eyler is a Platform Leader within Cognizant’s Insurance Practice. He brings 20 years of industry
experience, having joined Cognizant’s Insurance Practice in late 2016 after holding a number of senior
operating and consulting roles related to insurance technology strategy and implementation. Todd has
either turned around or led eight successful, core insurance system implementation projects and advised
on numerous others. He was previously CTO at Stone River/Fiserv Insurance Solutions, a Client Partner at
Majesco, and led the insurance research and advisory practices at Forrester Research and Gartner. He can
be reached at Todd.Eyler@cognizant.com.
Kaushik Bera
Life & Annuity PAS Conversion Solution Architect, Cognizant Insurance
Kaushik Bera is a Life and Annuity PAS Conversion subject matter expert within Cognizant’s Insurance
Practice. He has over 17 years of Life and Annuity COTS product system implementation and conversion
experience. Kaushik brings extensive experience of over six successful Policy Admin System Conversions
across major COTS platforms and has been instrumental in setting up Cognizant’s PAS conversion factory
framework. He can be reached at Kaushik.Bera@cognizant.com.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank and acknowledge the guidance provided by Michael Clifton, SVP, Global
Insurance Strategy, Platforms & Ventures, and Usha Lakshmanan, VP Insurance Platforms & Innovation.