Back of the book

Conversation with functional head

Dr. Amarnath Ananthanarayanan CEO & MD

Can you give us an instance of how information availability had made a difference to your business?

AA: IT is critical to make the right information available to determine pricing of insurance products in the market, as this would help us to drive more product innovation. Additionally it is just not enough to ensure that the data is safeguarded, but continuous churning of data through analytical tools is important to understand customer segmentation so that we can cross sell and up sell products, mitigate risks including fraud on continuous basis.

SC: We have undertaken projects to share our data with IRDA and other statutory bodies. This collective database from all insurance companies will be made available to them which will help them in talking better decisions in product pricing and new products. The MIS projects and analytic are highest in our priority and very soon a platform will be released for internal usage.

Can you elaborate on the major IT deployments you have done within your organization?

AA: We have launched front-end e-applications such as e-motor, e-health, e-receipting, e-marine and payment gateway. During the past two years we have deployed our core system on AS400 platform which is seamlessly integrated with various internal work-flows, B2B and B2C solutions. We plan to have a complete suite of products for our intermediaries and customers by the end of 2010.

SC: The core system has an elaborate Group Policy Management which is being used for large corporate Health Policy Management. The work-flow solutions are built within SOA framework with specific emphasis on real time integration with centralized Document Management System (DMS) and core applications. SMTP and SMS gateways have been integrated so that alerts and notifications can be raised. These work-flows have not only helped us to provide faster service to customers but also helped us to achieve standardization of servicing KPI all across our branches as well as intermediaries working for us.

How did this solution help you in your growth?

AA: With the retail thrust, the e-applications and internal work-flows are complementing our growth by facilitating reach and creating capacity to internal users to handle more customers. The B2B solution, especially e-Motor has helped our retail explosion. This application can be used by customers, intermediaries, dealers and our staff quite differently as a platform for online policy issuance, bulk selling, policy document storage repository, premium payment reconciliation and many other activities based on roles (user). Efforts have been taken to develop customized view of pages and functionality.

SC: The Return on Investment on e-Motor was achieved within six months of its deployment. The traditional motor document processing units need not have to process 40% of motor policies as the same is completed through self help e-Motor platform.

This is not only giving capacity to our servicing teams but also reduced the cost drastically.

Which are top technology trends you are following in 2010?

AA: Our focus in 2010 would be create a technology roadmap for customized solution in SOA framework, storage and backups solution to cater to increase in database and development of analytical solutions for pricing etc. We have earmarked Rs. 15 crores towards these technology initiatives. The 3G roll out will give impetus to e-commerce initiative in the B2C space.

SC: While 3G will help us to increase our footprints in the urban areas, mobility applications is another area where we see a potential for our industry and couple of large to medium projects would go for a pilot in this space.

geetha.nandikotkur@expressindia.com