Through MBE’s innovative use of Power Query for Excel, we have achieved a dynamic solution to replace our legacy tools. The developed solution is well structured, transparent to use and easy to maintain. It’s been a pleasure working with the MBE team on this project.“

Client

The South African actuarial modelling and reporting team for a gIobal reinsurer.

Challenges

• The actuarial and reporting teams needed to transform the company’s policy administration data into the format required by the model.
• Extracts from each client were received in different formats and required a bespoke transformation process.
• Transformations were programmed using legacy tools. The process had several manual steps, was slow to run and was very inflexible, creating a high-level of operational risk.
• Significant licence costs associated with the legacy tools that were being used.

Approach

Discovery

• MBE conducted discovery workshops with the client’s SMEs based on the results from MBE’s Actuarial Performance Management (APM) Assessment.

Analysis

• Performed root cause analysis on the data management processes.​
• Analysed the end-to-end model point creation process including manual steps, legacy data tool transformation logic and the data adjustments/corrections.​
• Assessed the infrastructure and tools already available in the organisation including SQL Server and Excel.​

Recommendations

• Recommended, developed and successfully implemented, using Power Query for Excel, a replacement of the model point creation process for two portfolios.​

Results

• Achieved a 70% reduction in data transformation run time compared to the legacy tools (1 million+ records processed in 8 minutes).
• Removed the manual steps, with Power Query for Excel directly linking to the client’s SQL Server data warehouse for sourcing the data.​
• Processing of the largest portfolio (1 million+ records) without the need to break it up into smaller files.​
• Client planning to migrate all portfolios to the new solution.

The post Applying Power Query to Cut Model Point Creation Time by 80% appeared first on MBE.

The Challenge

The client had identified the need for increased efficiency, accuracy and compliance. To achieve this goal they recognised it was necessary to streamline their actuarial reporting processes. The current workflows were proving time-intensive, highlighting the need for process automation.

Our Approach

Our process development team set about modernising the client’s processes. Collaboration was always at the forefront and we closely engaged with the client to ensure they were kept informed at all stages of the project. Whilst the client had clear objectives in mind, they also welcomed innovative suggestions from our team.

To deliver the project we took the following strategic actions:

Prophet Enterprise Process Design Configuration and Parameterisation: We meticulously designed and configured the process using the Prophet Enterprise (PE) framework.

Seamless Migration from Prophet Professional: The transition from Prophet Professional to Prophet Enterprise demanded precision. We standardised the run settings, variable groups and job templates for a seamless migration.

Enhancing PE Assumptions Manager: We fine-tuned the PE Assumptions Manager.

Implementing the IDR Data Model: The IDR data model, a foundational element, was thoughtfully designed, implemented and rigorously tested.

Integration and Automation Enhancement: We orchestrated a seamless integration and automation process from Prophet Enterprise through PRD to IDR, ensuring a seamless flow of data and insights.

Efficient Reporting and Data Extraction: By automating the SQL Server reporting and SAP data extracts, we empowered the client with real-time insights.

Automated Audits and Controls: Automated audits and controls were introduced to ensure data integrity and regulatory compliance.

Results

Our collaborative efforts far exceeded our client’s expectations of the possible outcome. Here is what was accomplished:

Reduced Data Duplication: Centralising and automating processes significantly reduced the duplication of model point data, assumption folders and tables.

Streamlined Data Validation and Controls: Lengthy data validation processes were streamlined through automated checks, thus enhancing accuracy and control.

The most surprising result for the client was the delivery of 40% Faster Valuation Process times. The end-to-end valuation results production and extraction significantly improved, enhancing operational agility.

The project was driven by collaboration and innovation, resulting in a transformed actuarial landscape that now empowers the client to confidently navigate the complexities of actuarial process development.

If you want to learn more about how MBE Consulting can reshape your actuarial processes landscape, please contact the team.

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The client’s customer services leadership team tasked MBE Consulting with helping them to develop a rewards programme for their retail business with in depth actuarial analysis initially using a proof of concept based on one product line with the ultimate goal of establishing a rewards programme for their entire product range.

The target business outcomes from a rewards programme included:

• Improved persistency risk to reduce policy lapses;
• Reduced operational costs resulting from fewer lapses;
• Reduced administrative burden of policy administration; and
• Increased brand exposure leading to increased new business volumes.

The challenge

Our client wanted to launch a rewards programme to strengthen customer loyalty and reduce policy lapses, lower operational costs and increase brand exposure. MBE Consulting was asked to investigate if a proof of concept rewards programme for the selected product line was feasible using existing data available from various sources.

The challenges presented themselves in obtaining, consolidating and analysing the available datasets to determine their appropriateness for the analysis of the business experience and rewards modelling. Working with large datasets also required the requisite (and often costly) computational resources needed to perform analysis and processing of large datasets and producing large sets of outputs.

What we did

As part of the discovery phase, ten experience factors were identified to have an influence on policyholder behaviours and product profitability. These experience factors were analysed to determine their impact and statistical significance on business experience using proxies in the existing policy data.

Discovery outcomes

Experience factors: The findings indicated that some of the experience factors did have a statistically and financially significant impact on policy persistency and would therefore influence the desired business outcomes.

Quantifying impact: The quantification of the impacts was determined and could be statistically tested using various modelling techniques that would fit the target outcome to various explanatory variables.

Linking datasets: The creation of a client linked to product dataset could be used to derive more valuable insights on customer behaviour beyond just rewards modelling.

Discovery phase actions

Collaboration: Meetings with key stakeholders within Actuarial, Business Intelligence and Information Technology teams to understand the available data sources and toolsets.

Data rationalisation: Sourcing and rationalising Actuarial models, data and assumptions for the product line in scope.

Data viability: Determining the viability of the data available to assess customers’ experience factors.

Discovery phase outcomes

Based on the findings, it was concluded that a targeted rewards programme had the potential to influence policyholder behaviour and drive the desired business outcomes.

The data insights that were uncovered have further improved the client’s understanding of their customer base and provided a solid foundation from which a rewards programme can be designed.

We also uncovered additional opportunities for the business:

• targeted risk management activities;
• improved policyholder engagements; and
• upselling and cross-selling opportunities across the entire product range.  

Phase 2 – analysis

The second stage of the project was a more rigorous statistical dive into each factor and how the findings may influence the actuarial assumptions and inputs that determine profitability.

Analysis phase outcomes

Data preparation: Data creation, cleaning, transformation and extraction in preparation for analysis on the full dataset.

Concept development: Incorporating concepts from both descriptive and inferential statistics for the relevant experience factors.

Data mapping: Understanding the different mappings to group data.

Identified key factors: Determined which factors are most important and therefore where the analysis should focus.

Analytics and modelling: Creating explanatory models that quantities the impact of various explanatory variables on the target outcome. The outcomes of this information can then be used to derive an economic model from which a rewards programme could be scoped.

Identified customer clusters: Identified high and low-risk customer clusters from which a rewards programme could be designed to target and optimise their cost-to-benefit ratio.

Designed BI dashboards: Creation of business intelligence dashboards that consolidated the outcomes of the analytics modelling and sensitivity testing.

Developed a rewards programme economic model: Enabled the client to project profitability based on changes to the identified experience factors across various scenarios.

By conducting a thorough discovery phase, we identified key experience factors that significantly impact policyholder behaviour and profitability. This knowledge provided a foundation for the client to move forward towards designing a rewards programme that help will support the client’s goals to optimise cost-to-benefit ratios, lower operational costs and increase brand exposure.

In addition, the insights gained from this study went beyond the rewards programme itself. We uncovered additional opportunities for the business, including targeted risk management activities, improved policyholder engagements, and upselling and cross-selling possibilities across the entire product range. These opportunities were derived from a bespoke dataset by merging the client’s exisiting databases which provided a new angle of visibility on their book of business.

In conclusion, this case study demonstrates the importance of leveraging data to inform strategic decision-making, drive customer-centric initiatives, and achieve tangible business results in the financial services industry.

Get in touch – If you need support in uncovering the commercial potential of your actuarial and finance data our team can help.

The post Leveraging Actuarial Analysis to Build an Insurance Rewards Programme appeared first on MBE.

A leading global reinsurance company asked MBE to review their actuarial operations. We began by examining how they were performing across the six enablers we measure within our Actuarial Performance Management (APM) Framework.

The results showed that the client was underperforming within two of the APM enablers:

1. Processes and Methods;^[1] and
2. Performance Management.^[2]

The two major issues that were identified as part of the APM Assessment were that processes were not properly documented and operational performance was not actively monitored.

Challenge

The actuarial team faced significant challenges with process consistency and efficiency negatively impacting both the quality and timeliness of their deliverables.

It was evident that actuarial processes were failing the team and standard practices were not being adhered to which was having a direct negative impact on the quality of the actuarial information.

The management team set out their vision for robust processes to be developed that could be easily executed by any team member, regardless of experience, and for all team members to understand the end-to-end process and the way it is executed. The team had a longer-term ambition to move away from manual to automated processes.

The management team established three key objectives:

1. improve the accuracy of the numbers to reduce rework;
2. reduce the process lead time; and
3. implement process resilience.

The management team identified these long-term outcomes as important to their strategy:

• reduce operational risk;
• automation and exception handling;
• efficient control framework;
• reduce key-man dependencies; and
• reduce complexity.

In the first instance, the client asked MBE to explore ways in which to make enhancements to their processes by piloting recommendations and improvements to their quarterly statutory valuation process.

Approach

Identify the Current State Process

To gain a clear understanding of the current state of the client’s statutory valuation process we initially met with the management team to establish their concerns and motivation for improvement.

We then conducted a series of workshops with the valuation team to better understand the process from their viewpoint, including how it was being executed, the system and tools used, current workarounds and challenges.

What we uncovered:

• Multiple data preparation steps being used throughout the process;
• Inconsistent use of checks and controls;
• Lack of new data validation meant poor quality data was being pushed through the process;
• Different versions of mapping tables and look-up lists across systems and tools;
• Manual modelling taking a disproportionate amount of effort;
• Inadequate process documentation;
• Lack of standardisation and appropriate use of tools and systems;
• Rework and cost of outputs disproportionately high; and​
• Actuaries manually performing non-value-adding tasks such as data cleansing, data transformation, performing controls and running validations.

Stage One – Current State Workshop

The initial phase of the project involved facilitating exploratory brainstorming workshops. The purpose of these workshops was to gain a full understanding of the current process being used by the team. This open-style forum allowed us to identify where and why the reworks were happening during the process, where hand-offs were taking place, and which process steps led to bottlenecks.

Based on our discussions we made the following recommendations to the client:

• Standardise the workbooks used within the quarterly valuation process using EUC best practice principles, focusing on structure and formatting with an added emphasis on checks and controls.
  
• Centralise, standardise, streamline, and implement version management for lookup lists and mapping tables used within the quarterly valuation process. This was to improve error handling at the data preparation stage and ultimately reduce rework throughout the process.
  
• Implement Quality, Cost and Delivery (QCD) measures to benchmark current performance and to help quantify the benefits of future improvements implemented by the team.

Stage Two Workshop – The Future State Process

For this next stage of the project, we began reiterating the three key overarching objectives set by the management team – improve accuracy, reduce time spent on the process and embed resilience. By emphasising the commitment, the management team had made to delivering improvements, it established a positive and engaged approach with the team.

Next, we asked the team to consider the current state process and to work with us to identify why the process was failing. Together, we analysed lead time and hand-offs to identify where savings could be made in the process. We discussed the process steps that the team find complex and what could be done to simplify them.  As a result of this workshop, we identified 26 improvement opportunities. The benefits that would be realised from these improvements focused on increased efficiency and the quality of the actuarial processes.

Recommendations

Armed with the intelligence gathered from the future state workshop, our main recommendations focused on standardising/streamlining the tools used in the statutory valuation process, moving all treaties to one modelling platform and introducing process performance KPIs. To achieve this, we recommended that the client start to use:  

• ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool for data preparation;
• One modelling platform to simplify the end-to-end process;
• EUC best practices and standardisation;
• Operational KPIs to measure quality, cost and delivery;
• Visual Management to effectively manage process performance KPIs; and
• Skills matrix and training plan to identify gaps and monitor and develop skills.

Next Steps

To achieve their ultimate goal of an automated future state, we have recommended an evolutionary phased approach to iteratively shift team capacity, from running the process to improvement activities, as well as gradually increasing the time available for actuarial analysis.

The client has asked MBE to help them implement our recommendations using our Actuarial Performance Managment Framework (APM) for improving the statutory valuation process, and apply the same approach across all of their processes.

[1] The Processes and Methods enabler defines the techniques, procedures and standards required to produce and manage risk data and actuarial results accurately and consistently. 

[2] The Performance Management enabler defines the measures that monitor and control the appropriateness of actuarial models and the performance of processes with the help of key performance indicators (KPIs).

For a complimentary assessment of your organisation’s actuarial performance contact our team.

The post Re-engineering the statutory valuation process and operational KPIs for a global reinsurer appeared first on MBE.

A large UK insurance company required support in developing a strategy that would improve its actuarial performance by releasing capacity, reducing costs, and streamlining processes.

The leadership team had identified that there was a need to make improvements to certain areas of their actuarial operations including data, processes and systems but were unclear as to where to start, and where to focus their attention.   

In addition, the leadership team required a partner who understood both the insurance sector and the actuarial function at a granular level and was able to take a holistic view of their operations.

Challenge

The client needed to continue to deliver business as usual and meet their ever-demanding reporting and valuation cycles. This left the leadership team with little time to focus on devising a strategy to drive change.

Faced with the broad remit to improve actuarial performance the client’s actuarial leadership team were unclear as to what was involved to achieve this including what their goals were, how to identify the issues and what areas to focus on first.

Approach

Using our blended approach of actuarial, systems and process expertise we have developed the Actuarial Performance Management (APM) Framework. The APM is a structured approach that helps insurers improve their actuarial performance across six enablers: People Roles & Responsibilities, Performance Management, Data Architecture, Actuarial Applications, Data Lifecycle and Processes & Methods.

From the APM Framework, we designed the APM Assessment. The Assessment enables us to undertake a complete analysis of the performance of insurers’ actuarial operations in an efficient, structured and measurable way.  

Phase One

Our Actuarial Performance Management (APM) Assessment was completed by everyone within the client’s actuarial department. The participants were asked to assess their organisation against different success factors that we have identified, to produce an overall score for each of the six APM enablers.

Phase Two

We analysed the results to provide a comprehensive diagnostic of the client’s current actuarial performance across the six APM enablers.

Using our analysis, we gained insights at a granular level as to which enablers (and the related success factors) were having a positive or negative impact on our client’s actuarial performance.

By examining each enabler and the individual results for the success factors, we identified the areas that required attention and with improvement would deliver the greatest impact on actuarial performance. In conjunction with our client’s needs and ambitions we recommended their initial focus should be on processes and methods and data architecture.

Using the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the assessment we developed a road map for the client that gave them a clear route with quantifiable objectives and strategies on how to improve actuarial performance in the short, medium, and long term.

The team at MBE Consulting, by using the APM Assessment, were able to cut through the complexities that were hampering our thinking and provided us with a straightforward path to making achievable, productive changes to our actuarial performance.

Head of Product & Pricing

Next steps

With a three year strategic roadmap for delivering improvements to the client’s actuarial performance in place, we have been asked to support with the next phase – the design and implementation of a performance improvement programme across their two most underperforming areas of processes and methods and data architecture.

Learn more about how our Actuarial Performance Management Framework could help transform your strategy. Contact us for your complimentary APM assessment.

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Overview

Spreadsheets and other end-user computing applications (EUCs) pose an enormous risk to companies that rely heavily on them to perform their reporting and other functions. The combination of a lack of controls, inadequate training and human error with which EUCs are often managed has led to many multi-billion Euro mistakes affecting insurers, banks and even the government. Actuarial teams are particularly at risk given the highly complex and often poorly documented spreadsheet models they use daily.

Management, regulators, and shareholders around the world are starting to take notice of the risks posed by EUCs and it is becoming ever more critical for insurers to ensure that they have a solid and comprehensive EUC management framework in place.

German-based insurers and their subsidiaries, for example, are now required to comply with a set of regulations collectively known as VAIT, which specifies the minimum requirements under supervisory law on the system of governance of insurance undertakings as well as the requirements with respect to the management processes and measures for IT security, IT risks, and IT processes.

EUC Management Framework benefits include:

1. The reduction of errors in results reporting
2. Improved risk management, from audit reports
3. to data privacy breaches
4. Significant time saving and increased efficiency
5. Smoother role transitions within companies

Approach

Effective EUC management programmes consist of elements of governance, people, process, and technology. MBE and Apparity customised these elements to meet the specific needs of the customer.

Governance: Develop and define an EUC policy, assessment criteria to classify EUC risk, and controls based on risk classification.

People: Identify key stakeholders, assign roles and responsibilities, conduct training, establish a steering committee, and encourage a culture of spreadsheet best practice and EUC risk awareness.

Process: Develop an EUC operating model, identify procedures required to create a sustainable EUC programme, and create supporting processes to help ensure VAIT and EUC policy compliance.

Technology: Implement and configure full Apparity product suite, aligning to client’s policy andrequirements; automate processes identified in the EUC operating model.

Key milestones achieved when implementing an EUC programme:

Results

Within ten months, MBE Consulting and Apparity helped the client build and operationalise a sustainable EUC programme.

Conclusion

In addition to satisfying internal and external policy and regulation, MBE Consulting and Apparity helped implement an EUC programme that will reduce:

• Errors in preparation of financial statement and management reporting
• Effort to remediate errors in EUCs
• Regulatory and compliance penalties
• Losses and reputational damage due to errors

Contact us to find out how we can help ensure you are VAIT compliant with our proven EUC management solution.

The post VAIT: Managing spreadsheet risk by constructing an EUC framework appeared first on MBE.

Every organisation has its own culture, and efforts to change the way an organisation operates or introducing a new initiative must be sensitive to that culture.

The Challenge

A global insurance brokerage and risk management company engaged MBE Consulting to help implement a new Document Management System (DMS). A DMS that could track, manage, and store documents and subsequently reduce paper was the obvious solution for the client to adopt. It was critical for the DMS to be adaptable to meet the various needs of each business area.

In addition, to ensure the success of the new system it required employees to shift away from using the cumbersome, but familiar method of managing and storing data in paper format. With hundreds of thousands of boxes of paper files and hundreds of square metres of office space taken over by paper, the costs and time to manage such a business practice had become unfeasible.

Alongside the implementation of the new DMS, MBE was asked by the client to develop and execute a Change Management Programme that incorporated a communication strategy and training programme for 400 members of staff.

The Change Management Programme involved:

• early introduction to the project objective and the system;
• detailed requirement specification and design sessions with key stakeholders;
• a rollout programme for the launch of the system with in-depth operator training; and
• further coaching and mentoring once the system was implemented.

With hundreds of thousands of boxes of paper files and hundreds of square metres of office space taken over by paper, the costs and time to manage such a business practice were overwhelming.

What we delivered

We worked with the client’s senior leadership team to gain their full backing and engagement with the decision to move to a more effective system.

Similarly, we ensured that department heads were involved at each stage in the integration of the new system, and that the concerns of the staff were understood ensuring the system was fit for purpose.

The engagement from senior management presented a positive message throughout the organisation and meant people were supportive of the change and the internal “sell” was achieved.

Once the DMS had been tailored to deliver the operational needs of the various departments, it needed to be tested and rolled out to the business. This was achieved through a programme of workshops for all staff designed to give an initial high-level introduction to the system and its capabilities.

An important element of the Change Management Programme was the development and delivery of an on-going support and mentoring network throughout the business. MBE trained and coached a small group of system ‘champions’ within the business to provide this support. This team ’walked the floor‘ and actively engaged with staff for feedback, addressing any concerns and additional training needs of the team.

Results

Using a Change Management Programme in the implementation of the new document management system ensured:

• staff were involved in the project from the outset building a positive and proactive attitude towards the change.
• the successful development of a streamlined training programme ensuring that the rollout maintained its momentum.
• the effective delivery of a major business change that:
  • generated significant savings in storage space and costs.
  • enabled documents to be easily and quickly located and accessed.
  • improved document security and disaster recovery plans.
  • created companywide buy-in and support of the change, providing an excellent platform for future change initiatives.

Contact us find out about our Actuarial Performance Management (APM) Framework and how it can help you deliver the strategic objectives for your actuarial operations.

The post Adapting to Tomorrow: Insurance Broker Embraces Change Management Strategy appeared first on MBE.

The Challenge

Our client urgently needed support in their IFRS 17 transition preparation for two of their main portfolios. 

These portfolios were to be valued using the full retrospective approach, meaning looking back to historic models, data and assumptions to ensure that the IFRS 17 Best Estimate Liability (BEL) calculations could be accurately performed.

The time required to perform these validations and calculations led to the client engaging MBE enabling their permanent in-house actuarial resources to focus on their daily tasks and other project work.

The Client

Our client is a well-established pan-African financial services company that provides a diverse range of financial and insurance solutions for retail and corporate customers.

We can now focus on the next phase of transition work. We are excited to get that going, with the help of MBE.

Finance Manager

The Approach

• Cooperation and collaboration
  • MBE worked closely with both the relevant Valuations team and the IFRS 17 Transition team to extract the information required and understand the runs and validations that needed to be performed.
    
• Listening to requirements
  • Given that they had performed similar tasks for other portfolios, the client had established a set of project goals and milestones.  The MBE team used this outline as a basis for their project plan and held themselves accountable by scheduling regular updates with the client to discuss progress according to the plan.
    
• Utilisation of modelling expertise
  • The MBE team thoroughly tested the validity of historical Prophet models going back ten years.
    
• Documenting results
  • Success at each milestone was evidenced in Excel artefacts prepared by the client for this purpose, ensuring that the process was fully auditable.

The Results

The client was able to perform their IFRS 17 transition calculations for these portfolios, employing the historic liability models that had been modified and validated for IFRS 17 use by MBE.  At the same time, the client was able to progress other BAU and project work, knowing they could trust and rely on MBE to successfully complete the project.

This has been a really successful collaboration. MBE was very responsive, willing and eager to listen to the team’s requirements. The MBE team worked well with both the segment and the IFRS 17 transition teams. We brought the MBE team onboard at just the right time, enabling us to meet critical deadlines.

IFRS 17 Transition Workstream Lead

Get in touch if you need support with ensuring the processes and procedures you established during the implementation phase of IFRS 17 are fully embedded and become BAU.

The post Fast tracking an insurer’s IFRS 17 transition preparation project appeared first on MBE.

The composition of work in a finance department is often different from that of other areas. Finance teams tend to be more formal and mature, the work requires more investigation and analysis and is more concentrated over a reporting period. Also, the culture and composition of employees in finance teams may also cultivate an environment naturally resistant to change.

In this case study we look at a change project in the finance area of a global insurer, and how the particular challenges of the client were addressed to produce sustainable and measurable results.

Client introduction and background

Our Operational Excellence consultants worked within the Finance Change team of a global life insurance and asset management company. This team had been set up to manage the changes within the finance department.

Through the Finance Change team, we engaged with a number of teams at the UK Head Office, including Financial Reporting, Financial Operations, Business Intelligence & Reporting and Actuarial.

In addition to these teams, our consultants also engaged with the other finance teams in London and across Europe.

Problem

The client required assistance in implementing the following changes in the Finance Department:

• New reduced cost targets.
• Centralisation of finance functions (from various UK and European sites to one UK site).
• Implementation of a new group reporting tool.
• Reduction of the lead time of Financial Reporting cycles.
• Improvement in the quality of delivery.

Solution

In order to ensure the ultimate success of the transformation project, our consultants initially needed to lay a solid foundation as a starting point. The steps needed to achieve this were to:

• Introduce the principles and key tools of operations management.
• Embed operations management within the teams and establish a consistent approach.
• Engage the full finance team in continuous improvement activities.
• Provide Lean/CI training to the managers & team leaders, followed by training for all team members.
• Deliver bespoke work stream presentations to the individual teams.

Once the individual work streams had been completed, our consultants maintained a presence within the finance department, working with the Finance Change team on site.

Building on the initial foundations, the teams were unified within finance and the way of working was standardised by:

• Introducing a Finance Reporting Board and daily huddles (short, focused meetings in which to make operational decisions), attended by representatives from each team.
• Working with the Finance Change team to assist teams with process improvement.
• Re-visiting operations management.
• Creating visual representation of the complete end-to-end reporting timetable.

Our consultants also worked with the other finance functions in London and across Europe to capture their knowledge with regards to the tasks to be moved to the central finance function. This included mapping current processes and working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).

Approach

The following approach was employed in order to achieve the desired outcome:

• Created workstreams of 6 weeks for each team, with two Lean specialists per workstream.
• Sat within the teams to be ‘part of the team’ for the duration of each work stream, fostering trust with those affected by the change.
• Completed a workstream charter with each team manager. This charter details the problem statement, the goals, the scope of the project and the stakeholders.

Each workstream had a standard structure for the six weeks, covering areas such as visual workflows showing team specific timetable and tasks, skills matrix and training plans, capacity planning and coaching and support.

Results and benefits

Established a culture of continuous improvement, eliminating waste and improving quality:

• The client has seen a reduction in paid overtime by eliminating wasteful activities.
• Challenging demand drivers i.e. those things that cause a spike in workload.
• Headcount reduction – absorbed three FTE’s worth of work from the consolidation team in Sweden and ran it with one FTE in the UK.
• Improved quality; now regularly achieve a score of 100% from Group for data quality and responsiveness (previous average was 60%).
• Embedded operations management, and coached and supported managers and team leaders in Lean Operations.
• Ultimately this assists with the day to day delivery and has improved communication across finance. It also supports skills development and capacity planning, and directly contributes to restructuring efficiencies.

Significant contribution to large finance projects:

• Facilitated the finance reporting timetable initiative (a total reduction of 4 days).
• Knowledge capture to support activity migration from Europe and London.
• Process capture and design for new system developments.

We knew that process improvement would enable us to speed up our reporting. The pleasant surprise was that operations management has initiated a change in our culture. Finance now feels more vibrant, and we are restless to improve what we do.

Finance and Commercial Director

If you need support with implementing change to the way your actuarial or finance teams operate, contact us to discuss your specific challenges and requirements.

Image (c) Shutterstock | IR Stone

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A large South African insurer had selected a software provider as the supplier for their IFRS 17 solution. A number of the provider’s components were already embedded as the modelling engine for their life insurance business and their IFRS 17 solution seemed to be the best fit in terms of addressing the data and storage requirements of the new accounting standard.

The initial quote for implementation of the software – excluding ongoing fees – came in at R40 million, and the insurer approached MBE for advice on how to reduce the outlay while still achieving the desired outcome of a complete and efficient IFRS 17 solution.

Based on a combination of MBE’s knowledge of the business, more affordable day rates and experience in similar projects, MBE was able to reduce the total estimated spend to R7 million.

Objective

Reduce the estimated spend for an IFRS 17 solution while ensuring that it would still be complete, efficient and suited to the business.

How we did it

Having received the initial quote of R40 million from the software provider, the insurer approached MBE for advice. MBE suggested some questions to pose to the vendor around what precisely would be included in the solution and how they arrived at their numbers. These questions, together with negotiation by the insurer, led to the issuance of a more bespoke quote of R19-22million.

This was an implementation estimate over and above what they were already paying for use of the provider’s software components and excluding the ongoing annual maintenance fees that would also need to be considered.

The insurer then engaged MBE in a series of workshops to delve deeper into their specific requirements and the details of the quote, to untangle tasks that could possibly be completed by MBE rather than the vendor, and to provide recommendations on what the essential and non-essential elements of the quote were.  

MBE has been working with the insurer for several years, and because of this partnership, MBE had an in-depth knowledge of the insurer’s business and requirements. The software provider also participated in these workshops, and a combination of the expertise of the three entities involved ensured that any decisions taken would be based on complete and informed input.

Following these workshops, MBE produced a report, which recommended that MBE and the vendor work together to implement the best solution to the insurer, at the best value.  With MBE providing the bulk of the service, and the software provider retaining tasks such as setup and training, MBE was able to reduce the total quote to R7million.

Contact our team to find out how we can help you with your IFRS 17 implementation project.

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