I couldn't believe my eyes, the first day I walked into an office of this big and reputed insurance company in the UK. I couldn't believe for the fact that in today's paperless world, there were piles of paper(or should I say sprinkled papers!) over virtually every table I could see. It was hard for me to believe the fact that the antic CPU monitors was too heavy to lift for a normal size, 5.9-ish, fairly built man like me. Couldn't believe the existence of the wooden office furniture in today's commercial world.
I was there as a software consultant representing my company who was helping this insurance major to review it's lost glory due to some major devastating events in the client's past few years like the 9/11 claims, where this client was co-insurer in many cases. I had come from my company's office in Mumbai, which had a plush building and interiors to boost of. And wasn't expecting any different in the UK, my colonial Master, who taught us what is civilization! But to my utter amazement, the above is what I saw! Goshh!!! As I settled down and started getting busy with my daily routine, my disbelief started giving way to realism. During the course of my requirement gathering for the software to be developed, I came across several individuals and facts which led me to believe in what I saw on that first day. I learnt that mine was not the first consulting company, to built software for our client. In fact we were just the knowledge transferee of that legacy to carry forward. It was not long before I met an employee who has been "adorning" the same seat for last 29 years and had been part of computer systems which spanned one big room! And then I was told that the legacy software systems had been there for at least a generation. Bang! I hit the ground. Now I knew where those antic pieces and gadgets came from. I might have had plush interiors and offices back home, but my client here in the UK probably had them long before even a computer was known in my country.
And as I went on to design the software (and eliminate the horrors associated with it!), I realised that it is going to take a minimum of 5 years for any company, leave alone my company which was one of the top five consulting companies in the world, to fully understand the legacy systems and develop an umbrella software to replace those, in an effort to bring all bits under one piece of software to achieve more robustness and scalability. Well the matter doesn't stop there. Since my consultant had a 8-year revival deal with the client, it had plans of injecting new software into the mix as a part adding fast-paced growth to the already strong technology base. Now here is the problem.
By the time this so-called umbrella has been setup and stabilised, almost a three quarters of a decade would have been passed. With the technological changes taking place virtually every day, since the time the restructuring started till the time it actually happened, there would be a day light between what the insurance company had in place as opposed to what it's competitors might be working on. While the client started in on a cutting-edge technology back then, those software have now given birth to another set of legacy software, with the company still coming to terms with them! The competitors, in the meanwhile would be working on the newer technologies and reaping benefits thereof. Also in all these years you tend to lose key individuals, especially the one who maintain the software, as these personnel are mostly based out of the developing countries like India, China, Brazil and alike where the employee turnover in the software industry is very high.
This makes it important for an insurance company to constantly keep an eye on the emerging technological advancements. No matter how sound and streamlined the business processes are, in today's highly competitive market you as a leading insurer need to be on your toes and embrace the technological changes to fit into your solutions to avoid long gestation periods of IT makeovers. IT immaturity is what some of the leading and more importantly the growing insurers need to watch out for. Cost cutting to the extent of neglecting and bypassing technological breakthroughs have a cascading effects throughout the lifetime of a company. If you as a company feel that certain investment needs to be done in your IT base, then make sure you go for it, even if that means giving up of few incubation and diversification plans. Because once you have a set business process backed by a latest and well designed software technology, then diversification is less cumbersome and more promising.
So coming back to my civilized colonial Master, though the irony of what I saw on the first day was the fact that though this insurance company has been through the commercialization of it's offices, as opposed to my newly built office back in India, the insurance comapny has failed to cash on the important software technological advancements over the years, resulting in far less robust and rigid IT support.
I was there as a software consultant representing my company who was helping this insurance major to review it's lost glory due to some major devastating events in the client's past few years like the 9/11 claims, where this client was co-insurer in many cases. I had come from my company's office in Mumbai, which had a plush building and interiors to boost of. And wasn't expecting any different in the UK, my colonial Master, who taught us what is civilization! But to my utter amazement, the above is what I saw! Goshh!!! As I settled down and started getting busy with my daily routine, my disbelief started giving way to realism. During the course of my requirement gathering for the software to be developed, I came across several individuals and facts which led me to believe in what I saw on that first day. I learnt that mine was not the first consulting company, to built software for our client. In fact we were just the knowledge transferee of that legacy to carry forward. It was not long before I met an employee who has been "adorning" the same seat for last 29 years and had been part of computer systems which spanned one big room! And then I was told that the legacy software systems had been there for at least a generation. Bang! I hit the ground. Now I knew where those antic pieces and gadgets came from. I might have had plush interiors and offices back home, but my client here in the UK probably had them long before even a computer was known in my country.
And as I went on to design the software (and eliminate the horrors associated with it!), I realised that it is going to take a minimum of 5 years for any company, leave alone my company which was one of the top five consulting companies in the world, to fully understand the legacy systems and develop an umbrella software to replace those, in an effort to bring all bits under one piece of software to achieve more robustness and scalability. Well the matter doesn't stop there. Since my consultant had a 8-year revival deal with the client, it had plans of injecting new software into the mix as a part adding fast-paced growth to the already strong technology base. Now here is the problem.
By the time this so-called umbrella has been setup and stabilised, almost a three quarters of a decade would have been passed. With the technological changes taking place virtually every day, since the time the restructuring started till the time it actually happened, there would be a day light between what the insurance company had in place as opposed to what it's competitors might be working on. While the client started in on a cutting-edge technology back then, those software have now given birth to another set of legacy software, with the company still coming to terms with them! The competitors, in the meanwhile would be working on the newer technologies and reaping benefits thereof. Also in all these years you tend to lose key individuals, especially the one who maintain the software, as these personnel are mostly based out of the developing countries like India, China, Brazil and alike where the employee turnover in the software industry is very high.
This makes it important for an insurance company to constantly keep an eye on the emerging technological advancements. No matter how sound and streamlined the business processes are, in today's highly competitive market you as a leading insurer need to be on your toes and embrace the technological changes to fit into your solutions to avoid long gestation periods of IT makeovers. IT immaturity is what some of the leading and more importantly the growing insurers need to watch out for. Cost cutting to the extent of neglecting and bypassing technological breakthroughs have a cascading effects throughout the lifetime of a company. If you as a company feel that certain investment needs to be done in your IT base, then make sure you go for it, even if that means giving up of few incubation and diversification plans. Because once you have a set business process backed by a latest and well designed software technology, then diversification is less cumbersome and more promising.
So coming back to my civilized colonial Master, though the irony of what I saw on the first day was the fact that though this insurance company has been through the commercialization of it's offices, as opposed to my newly built office back in India, the insurance comapny has failed to cash on the important software technological advancements over the years, resulting in far less robust and rigid IT support.
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