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01 Jul 2010INSURANCE: Helping Insurers Become More Customer Driven
Recent Gauteng Business News
“Because of these pressures, there is much demand for our software and application testing services,” says Haydn Pinnell, MD of Global Testing Services (GTS), an EOH company.
Insurance has become a commodity, and the competition from other financial services and online and direct insurance companies has added to the pressure on the traditional insurance industry.
“Traditional insurance players are having to relook and re-engineer the way they are doing business with their customers and their intermediaries.
“Insurance players are becoming laser-focused on retaining their customers. They want to do better business and faster, and that may mean giving intermediaries access to their information and decision-making tools,” explains Pinnell.
Insurance companies are, therefore, having to weigh up the advantages of re-engineering their applications and systems, that is, refreshing their legacy applications and systems. It also means re-evaluating the technology they’re using.
Traditionally, a customer’s spending on insurance is split into sectors, that is business, household, car insurance and so forth, and therefore possibly insurers. “The Holy Grail for insurers is to get a customer to spend all their money with one insurance company. This requires breaking down silos and getting one view of the customer, which will help cross-sell products and services,” explains Pinnell.
Insurers have to bear in mind certain constraints though: there is a delicate balance to be maintained between innovation in a business model while containing costs. And, as innovative as a company would like to be, financial services companies are subject to ever tighter regulatory and governance requirements on a global scale.
GTS can provide specialised knowledge on testing, international best practices, as well as insight and traceability into the applications being developed. A South African company with a global footprint, GTS has refined and developed its processes over a period of many years, offering independent software and application testing services for even the most specialised and demanding businesses.
“GTS has developed a range of specific technology focused on cost mitigation, risk mitigation and improved quality. These services can be deployed either as part of a project or programme, or as a wider value-add proposition across the organisation as a whole with a focus on specific areas of technology, automation and scalability across multiple projects,” explains Pinnell.
The core of GTS’s offering is its Centre of Excellence. GTS provides completely flexible delivery methods from the Centre of Excellence to out-source, co-source and project based engagements. In this way, customers can choose the best solution for their needs, knowing that GTS offers management and control of all testing related activities to ensure the proper testing techniques are applied on an engagement-by-engagement basis.
“GTS utilises tools and technology from multiple software vendors as our approach is driven by methodology, people and process – rather than one particular product, even though we have exceptional specialised knowledge across multiple domains such as SAP, Oracle, etc.,” explains Pinnell.
By ensuring that testing is prioritised and client specific, GTS enables its insurance customers with the knowledge that its applications and/or software will achieve the desired results. “We focus on reducing time to market, improving quality, optimising testing cost associated with application deployment and change in lifecycles, increasing organisational agility, and ultimately reducing organisational and business risk. We maximise these principles to ensure that our customers can deliver first time, every time,” Pinnell concludes.
Business News Sector Tags: Business|
