Business Knowledge is Most Important
"Mr. P is now having some hard time dealing with policy data... Last time he just used the data which were already cleaned up and formatted by Mr. C. Anyway, this is good for him." Ms. L told me so during our coversation when we had lunch together yesterday. She is my ex actuarial colleague who I have known for ten years (and she is now a "mom-to-be"!)
"Yup, this is definitely a good thing for him to learn. Now he can get to the real picture of policy admin system." I agreed with Ms. Lee. Mr. P is my ex-colleague as well, however he is a few years junior than us.
"Actually almost all companies have some extents of system issues."
"Yes, I agree. I think that most problems because the persons who setup system do not have enough knowledge on how the business should work."
After dealing with several policy admin systems at different insurance/takaful companies, I find out that lack of business knowledge is the key reason causing most critical system issues. If the person who develops system doesn't understand how actually the business should work, how can we expect the system will work correctly? To make matters worse, many system implementation projects are run on unreasonably tight timeline until many non-sales functionalities (e.g. Claim module) will have to sacrify - always be scheduled as "Day-2", but the problem is my claim friends totally have no idea when will the "Day-2" comes...
Sometimes, the business owners themselves don't realize that they are not equipped with the relevant business knowledge - for example, incorrct perceptions on family takaful products with participant account ("PA"). When we talk about family takaful products, many of us with conventional life insurance background may say: "Easy lah, these poducts work the same way as conventional investment-linked products, nothing special..." It is "hopefully" the same, but unfortunately it is NOT. The unique treatments on PA profit declaration alone (will double up if the products are will durplus sharing) can cause a disaster to the system if the conventional investment-linked modules are duplicated for these family takaful products. To make the matter worse, some business owners may come out with so-called "creative" shortcut solutions to overcome the problems they encounter - which will cause more problems like a snowball rolling.
Perhaps it is high time to revisit how Business Analyst ("BA") should play their roles effectively in the system implementation projects. If the responsible BAs are mainly from IT background, I would recommend the respective business owner to get a dedicated actuarial support to serve as the "intermediary" to facilitate communications from both technical and non-technical - as they talk different language! How do I know this? Well, it is because I was the "intermediary" in one of my previous consultancy work...
"Yup, this is definitely a good thing for him to learn. Now he can get to the real picture of policy admin system." I agreed with Ms. Lee. Mr. P is my ex-colleague as well, however he is a few years junior than us.
"Actually almost all companies have some extents of system issues."
"Yes, I agree. I think that most problems because the persons who setup system do not have enough knowledge on how the business should work."
After dealing with several policy admin systems at different insurance/takaful companies, I find out that lack of business knowledge is the key reason causing most critical system issues. If the person who develops system doesn't understand how actually the business should work, how can we expect the system will work correctly? To make matters worse, many system implementation projects are run on unreasonably tight timeline until many non-sales functionalities (e.g. Claim module) will have to sacrify - always be scheduled as "Day-2", but the problem is my claim friends totally have no idea when will the "Day-2" comes...
Sometimes, the business owners themselves don't realize that they are not equipped with the relevant business knowledge - for example, incorrct perceptions on family takaful products with participant account ("PA"). When we talk about family takaful products, many of us with conventional life insurance background may say: "Easy lah, these poducts work the same way as conventional investment-linked products, nothing special..." It is "hopefully" the same, but unfortunately it is NOT. The unique treatments on PA profit declaration alone (will double up if the products are will durplus sharing) can cause a disaster to the system if the conventional investment-linked modules are duplicated for these family takaful products. To make the matter worse, some business owners may come out with so-called "creative" shortcut solutions to overcome the problems they encounter - which will cause more problems like a snowball rolling.
Perhaps it is high time to revisit how Business Analyst ("BA") should play their roles effectively in the system implementation projects. If the responsible BAs are mainly from IT background, I would recommend the respective business owner to get a dedicated actuarial support to serve as the "intermediary" to facilitate communications from both technical and non-technical - as they talk different language! How do I know this? Well, it is because I was the "intermediary" in one of my previous consultancy work...
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