Cover-All Blog

From our previous postings on this subject, it is clear that a BI initiative is a significant undertaking that involves much planning and an experienced technology partner.  But who actually uses these systems, and what are the challenges?

"From an end user perspective," says Aaron Herrmann, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Cover-All, "it should be business users who will utilize the systems.  This includes key management personnel, such as the vice-president of Claims, vice-president of UW, COO, President, CEO, Actuary, business analysts, etc."

In addition, using BI systems will involve some capital outlay, some administrative changes, and some training.  According to Forrester Research's Boris Evelson, in addition to software costs, "The effort and costs associated with professional services, whether you use internal staff or hire contractors, depend not only on the complexity of business requirements like metrics, measures, reports, dashboards, and alerts, but also on the number of data sources you are integrating, the complexity of your data integration processes, and logical and physical data modeling."

Herrmann emphasizes that, "There is a company-wide adaption that must take place and must be part of the vision from the beginning.  If business personnel are involved early, they have ownership in the vision and selection process, which will go a long way toward a BI project being successful and getting adapted by the targeted end users.  If you have a BI tool, you need discipline to use it in the proper way.  Some training will also be required so the tool becomes truly useful."

That said, BI systems enable users to store and leverage a great deal of critical information in areas such as: Submission; Underwriting; Quote, Binder and Policy; Claims; Organization; Client & Political Geography; Products and Programs; Lines of Business; Reinsurance; Global Reference (Master Data); Multi-Currency; Limits and Deductibles; Exposures; Rating; Party; Distribution Channels; Marketing; Actuarial; Temporal (Time-basis); Transactions, and Financials and Operational Performance.

distributed by