Work Systems Analysis Report

ALTA Consulting COMM 436 202 – Group 1 Amanda Lai | Lauren Telford | Tiffany Ng | Angela (Noo Ri) Son

4 2 9 5 D u n b a r S t r e e t | V a n c o u v e r , B C | 6 0 4 - 7 3 6 - 8 8 5 5

Work System Analysis

Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Executive Summary

Introduction ii Barriers that hinder Dunbar Insurance’s performance ii Requirements iii Key metrics iii Recommendations iii

Understanding the Business and Work System

Introducing Dunbar Insurance 1 Work system and business practices 1 Scope statement 2 Project baseline and Baseline Management Plan 2

Work System Issues and Requirements 3 Identified Alternatives

Alternatives considered 5 Three considerations 6

Evaluating Alternatives

Evaluation summary 7 Recommendations and Implementation

Recommendations 9 Constraints 9 Implementation 10

Appendices

Appendix Guide 11

ALTA Consulting | Dunbar Insurance i

Acknowledgements

ALTA Consulting wishes to acknowledge the input and expert advice imparted by the Dunbar Insurance branch in the development of this work system project. This opportunity has prompted an important perspective into gaining valuable system analysis experience within a local company such as Buntain Insurance. The Dunbar Insurance advisory group consisted of:

Ms. Stephanie Demmers, Manager of Insurance Services, Insurance Brokerage; Dunbar Insurance branch

Ms. Lauren Telford, Front-line insurance agent/broker; Dunbar Insurance branch

Members of the advisory group provided guidance at the start of the project and input on the final recommendations, with support throughout the work system analysis. ALTA Consulting would also like to recognize the support from the knowledgeable Professor Carson Woo and his never-ending dedication to Information Systems Analysis and Design, along with the encouragement and guidance to the four girls who sit on the right side of HA 343’s lecture hall.

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Executive

Summary

Introduction The Buntain Insurance Group prides itself on being one of the most esteemed names for insurance services in the neighbourhood of Kitsilano. Providing a wide array of policy coverage in insurance products, Buntain Insurance is known to be family-oriented, and client driven – a reason why its services are highly regarded at all four of its branches. To strengthen their reach to clients, Buntain Insurance relatively recently acquired a young and growing brokerage, Dunbar Insurance, which will be the focus of ALTA Consulting’s work system analysis project.

Barriers that hinder Dunbar Insurance’s performance Incompatible Systems Only three of the four branches are linked together using the same insurance software system, The Agency Manager (TAM), while Dunbar Insurance uses the PowerBroker software. Though the other three branches have centralized databases that can be accessed across the branches, Dunbar Insurance has a separate database that is only accessible to their own brokerage. This is inefficient for both clients and brokerage employees, as clients are under the assumption that they can access their policies and pay their premiums at all Buntain Insurance branches.

Scattered Information Looking at the environmental level of Buntain Insurance brokerages, scattered information results from the incompatible systems in TAM and PowerBroker, which prevent the different branches from accessing the same information. For Dunbar Insurance in particular, the current system used for preserving client records maintains multiple copies of a client policy. For

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example, an endorsement to a client’s policy resides in a separate record, rather than existing as a component of one consolidated client file. Given the wide array of insurance products, the different policies and services mean that the integrity of these policies are integral to the client and the coverage they receive from Dunbar Insurance.

Less Experienced Brokers As the newest acquisition with respect to the more experienced Buntain Insurance brokerages, the brokers at Dunbar Insurance are relatively younger and less experienced. While employee training is given, the combination of PowerBroker’s perplexing user interface and the scattered information across branches poses a threat to the productivity and consistence at the Dunbar branch.

Requirements In determining the appropriate requirements to evaluate the alternatives and recommendations made, functional and non-functional business requirements were discussed and researched with input from the Dunbar Insurance advisory group. These requirements were also realistically approached, by taking constraints and limitations into account. Ultimately, both functional and non-functional requirements emphasized the end-goal: to have reliable, accurate information sharing that would reduce confusion for both brokers and clients of Dunbar Insurance.

Key metrics To evaluate the alternate resolutions of maintaining the status quo, and working through change management to TAM or SigXP, another insurance software, there were three key metrics used: the system’s capacity for integration, the system’s ease of use, and support given by the

software vendor throughout implementation. Each category was weighted accordingly and determined the recommendation and implementation plan for Dunbar Insurance’s work system as a whole.

Recommendations Following the evaluation criteria, change management to TAM with the addition of employee training would be the most feasible change for Dunbar Insurance. Executing the TAM system at Dunbar Insurance would enlist a hybrid implementation of both the ‘big-bang’ and ‘phased’ approach. Further training and continued monitoring and support would also be realized, in order to create a smooth transition from PowerBroker to TAM for the younger branch as a whole.

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Understanding the

Business

Work System

Introducing Dunbar Insurance One of four insurance brokerage branches owned and managed by the Buntain Insurance Group, Dunbar Insurance Agency Ltd. is the newest addition to the Buntain family situated in the Dunbar neighbourhood. Other offices are located in the Point Grey, South Granville and Shaughnessy areas, and are becoming one of the go-to insurance broker agencies in Vancouver West. Though Dunbar Insurance is managed by the Buntain family and other trusted individuals, the family-oriented organization has a reputation for providing excellent customer service, while delivering professional support from over a dozen insurance companies to its clients. In keeping with tradition, in-house managers at Buntain brokerages are appointed through seniority, rather than external hiring. Dunbar Insurance follows the same policy, yet it has a more youthful corporate culture of younger, less-established brokers.

Work system and business practices While the other three Buntain brokerages have already conducted change management for the TAM management system, Dunbar Insurance currently uses PowerBroker, an insurance software solution that relies on Zycomp Systems Ltd. to provide service and support. PowerBroker is a solution catered to brokerages for its database practicality in coordinating customer and policy information, in addition to the ability to integrate new functions into the software application. Though customers do not use the work system,


they benefit and are supported by PowerBroker through the basic effectiveness of the system, into which some insurance companies upload their updates on policies directly. The main business process triggered is from the client’s request for an insurance quote from the broker, and subsequently, an applicable coverage plan [see Appendix 3 for detailed model]. While the work system already includes basic policy eligibility requirements – known as ‘single limits’ – there are also unique circumstances in which the broker must interact with insurance companies to explore a customized insurance request – defined as ‘special limits’. Should the customer purchase coverage from the list of suitable insurance plans from the broker, the broker then enters transaction data into both the brokerage database and the corresponding insurance company’s system, allowing verification of the policy before issuing it to the customer. However, there is no access between the Dunbar Insurance database and other Buntain locations due to the incompatibility of the two systems in TAM and PowerBroker – therefore, customer information is not effectively centralized in a way where brokers can access information and customers can enter any Buntain brokerage for insurance requests.

Scope statement Justification Dunbar insurance is currently not able to satisfy customers’ expectations to access their personal and policy information at any branch that they go to under the Buntain Insurance Group.

Description & Deliverables ALTA will consult stakeholders on which brokerage management system will best suit and improve their current business processes by gathering requirements from the employees, analyzing their current operations and evaluating different alternative solutions through gap analysis in order to make a recommendation that is both operationally and financially feasible for Dunbar Insurance.

Project baseline and Baseline Management Plan Please refer to Appendix 7.

Comment [TN1]: Is the client’s request a business process that is triggered? Or is it the thing that DOES the triggering of the business process of providing an applicable coverage plan?


Work System Issues

and Requirements

There were three major issues identified within Dunbar Insurance’s current work system and insurance software. The first is the incompatibility of Dunbar Insurance’s software, PowerBroker, and Buntain Insurance’s centralized use of TAM. Second is the scattered information that results in redundancies like multiple records for a single client. Lastly, Dunbar’s less experienced brokers are susceptible to more errors and require additional assistance in core work practices – that is, discerning the appropriate procedures for specific policy types. The problem of incompatible systems between Dunbar Insurance and the rest of the Buntain Insurance offices means that customers who realize the family-oriented nature of the business cannot access their information at all branches. Also, the issue of scattered information results in multiple records for each client, and thus, redundancies in the data. The current PowerBroker system creates a tunnel effect when in a customer’s policy, that requires unnecessary steps to then access another policy belonging to the customer. Lastly, the young nature of Dunbar Insurance means that the less experienced brokers are more susceptible to errors. In solving these issues, a number of business requirements must be addressed. Functionally, access to Buntain’s centralized database, and vice versa, is necessary. The software used must also allow appropriate access control for individual brokers to access their personal to-do lists and works scheduled. Additionally, the ability to distinguish between payment methods – agency or direct bills – must be available for all of a customer’s policies, individually. As well, a number of automatic functions are necessary: automatic saving and


uploading of policy versions, automatic archives, automatic periodic statement processing (that lists all policies a particular companies up for renewal, for example), and automatic Accounts Receivable status updates. Also, the software must have the ability to set policy reminders and abeyances to schedule work. Lastly, brokers must be licenced appropriately for different policies, or refer to manager. Some non-functional requirements are security and insurance company integration, which enables insurance companies to automatically update the brokerage’s system with premiums and limit updates that they calculate. Also, another non-functional requirement to be considered is file extraction, which allows brokers to produce any documents for a client, and codification of accounts and products to streamline work. Finally, the software should provide a form of word integration that extracts portions of a policy that are automatically filled into consistent checklists or letters for clients. A table list of the functional and non-functional requirements can be found in Appendix 8.


Identified

Alternatives

Alternatives Considered For Dunbar Insurance, three alternative solutions were considered: maintaining the status quo with Power Broker, changing the system to TAM, and changing the system to SigXP. While there were many other insurance software products available in the market, we narrowed down to these three options based on primary research (speaking with the company’s management) and secondary research (online research on features and reviews of products). In our analysis, we used the following criteria to evaluate and compare the alternatives: integration, ease of use, and support. Integration abilities with the other Buntain Insurance’s branch’s systems help address the first key issue. The second and third criteria can filter alternatives that will help reduce client record redundancies and errors. For a graphical summary of the alternative evaluation, please refer to Appendix 9. While there were other factors considered, such as financial and operational feasibility, they were deemed less critical to solving the three key issues, and therefore were discarded. For example, financial feasibility is not a critical consideration as all of the systems fall within the $15,000 one-time expenditure and $1,000 annual fee cap that was set by the management. Similarly, operational feasibility is not strong distinguishing criteria because all three alternatives need to be executed similarly with staggered and continuous training and monitoring process at a level where the productivity during work hours would not be impacted. While this criterion was not used to decide which alternative was the best, it was later considered when we were

planning out the implementation plan.


Three considerations Status quo – staying with PowerBroker, adding further training Currently, Dunbar Insurance’s software is PowerBroker. It provides unlimited database for all customers, performs daily backups of policy information, and is partially customizable. While it claims to be integrative, it is proving to be complex, difficult to navigate, and prone to human error. The human inaccuracies are becoming more prominently problematic as Dunbar Insurance employees are mostly young and inexperienced brokers. If Dunbar Insurance chooses to stay with this software, it will have to reform its human capital to either re-train the pre-existing staff more intensively or seek out for more qualified staff to navigate the challenging system.

Change management to The Agency Manager (TAM) TAM is a brokerage management software that is most widely used in the insurance industry. Additionally, TAM has already been integrated by the other branches of Buntain Insurance. Made by Applied Systems Inc., the software enables customer service representatives to quickly and efficiently dispatch brokerage business. TAM boasts its abilities to improve productivity, integrate with third-party software, and customize features. Most importantly, it receives the love of many brokerage companies due to its easy-to-train user interface and navigation.

Change management to SigXP SigXP is an insurance broker management system that combines customer relationship management (CRM) and electronic data interchange (EDI) functionalities. It runs on a SQL platform and allows for document management, paperless solutions, customizable security functions and automated policy issuances categorized by assigning policy numbers. Specifically, it is trusted by insurance companies, such as Wawanesa Insurance and Economical Insurance, because of its secure real-time update abilities. While this system has strong merits in security and up-to-date information, it only runs on Windows operating systems and will require completely new training for the brokers as well.


Evaluating

Alternatives

E

Evaluation summary Status Quo TAM SigXP

Integration No Yes No

Ease of Use Low High Med-High Support Low High Medium

Status quo PowerBroker is not compatible with the other branches’ systems. Also, the user experience is infamous for its inability to switch between policies or clients fluidly and its clustered user interface. Lastly, Zycomp Systems Limited – the service provider – offers limited hours of operations and does not provide any training or live support.

TAM: The Agency Manager TAM is currently being used by the other branches as well, which makes it feasible and much easier for Dunbar Insurance to consolidate and link its database with the central system. The user interface of TAM is clean and minimalist, which makes it very easy for even younger and less experienced brokers to navigate (Appendix 4). Additionally, it is known for its simplified codifying process, which makes the user experience pleasant from the perspectives of both the database manager and the brokers. Finally, TAM rates High for Support as TAM’s customer reviews suggest that the provider has the “best support group” (Appendix 5); it has 24/7 call line, online webinars, as well as in-person training sessions that are available in Vancouver upon request.


SigXP Currently, SigXP is not compatible with the TAM system. Similar to TAM, SigXP has a much cleaner and simpler layout than Power Broker. It rates slightly below for Ease of Use as it still has room for improvement in its codifying process. Lastly, SigXP also provides the same client support services as TAM with the exclusion of the in-person trainings. Additionally, if Dunbar Insurance were to change its operating system, it would have to change its insurance software once again as SigXP only offers support with the Windows OS.


Recommendations

and Implementation

Recommendations In our evaluation summary, TAM emerged as the best alternative compared to the status quo and SigXP options. TAM is the only software that will allow Dunbar Insurance to integrate with the rest of Buntain Insurance, and has higher vendor support and ease of use than either of the other alternatives. An additional benefit is that TAM’s automated workflows and intuitive user interface will enable increased productivity from the employees at the Dunbar branch. Thus, we recommend that Dunbar Insurance change its system from PowerBroker to TAM, and that management supplement the software change with both technical and functional training. We recommend that these changes occur through a hybrid implementation, to be discussed below.

Constraints The following constraints were considered in constructing the implementation plan to ensure that it is both financially and operationally feasible.

Financial The management has set a $15,000 budget for the one-time capital expenditure on a software purchase, and a $1,000 limit for any annual, recurring subscription fees. The costs of the TAM system fall within these financial constraints.


Top Management In order for the system change to be successful, it must have the full support of top management. Top management must take ownership of the project and show their support by announcing the change to employees well in advance of the actual implementation, answering any questions raised by employees, and being flexible during the entire change process should any new circumstances arise.

Human Resources A system change of this scale necessitates employee training; however, employees cannot be expected to dedicate their time beyond their regular work hours for the purpose of company training.

Time and Location Due to the nature of insurance data, client records and all files in the existing database cannot be moved in segmented portions. The actual data transition must happen at one time and on a Sunday, when the office is closed, to minimize disruption to productivity. In addition, the vendor must offer training in Vancouver.

Implementation We recommend that Dunbar Insurance undertake the system change through a hybrid implementation combining both big bang and phased methods. The implementation is big bang such that the data transition occurs at one time during the installation. The phased component is that the legacy PowerBroker system will not be discontinued immediately after TAM has been installed, in case of any significant problems with the new system. The system will be kept for three months following the installation as a precautionary measure until the end of the insurance fiscal year in June, and all new data entry henceforth shall occur on the new system. After TAM has been installed, management should monitor acceptance by taking feedback from the employees who use it, as well as from clients to discern any significant changes in the quality of service they experience. During this period, management should also consult all available support resources provided by the vendor should the need arise.

Training Employees will undergo an intensive training workshop provided by a TAM employee, at the Dunbar office. Following that, employees will shadow other employees at Buntain Insurance branches who already use TAM to familiarize themselves with the system. The shadowing will occur with a couple employees on rotation during work hours, so that operations can continue with minimal disruption. Both the workshop and the shadowing will occur in the weeks leading up to the installation, to ensure that employees are ready to use the system as soon as it is installed at the Dunbar branch. In addition to technical training, employees must also be trained in general work practices at the office. Top management will conduct this training during a one-time workshop, in order to teach employees the essentials of insurance and to improve their current areas of weakness. Topics to cover will include the correct procedures for different types of claim, as well as different types of limits. If deemed necessary, management should hold regular meetings with staff for the express purpose of confirming employees’ understanding of the work practices. An implementation timeline can be found in Appendix 10.


Appendices

Appendix Guide Appendix 1: CATWOE Diagram 12 Appendix 2: BPMN Model: Broker-Client Process 13 Appendix 3: Rich Picture Diagram 14 Appendix 4: TAM 15 Appendix 5: SigXP 16 Appendix 6: Risks and Mitigation 17 Appendix 7: Project Baseline and Baseline Management Plan 18 Appendix 8: Work System Requirements 19 Appendix 9: Alternatives Evaluation 20 Appendix 10: Implementation Timeline 21


Appendix 1: CATWOE

Clients Internal Users: Brokers - would be able to work more efficiently and accurately Managers - better work would mean better branch performance

External Users: Customers - benefit from quality of service (e.g. phone wait time, info

redundancy) Insurance Companies - need to extract customer and policy from the system,

so would benefit from accuracy of information and ease of access

Actors Brokers - use the system while interacting with customers Manager - small branch, so manager participates as well

Transformation Customer details & information consolidated customer record Claims & Renewals policies

Worldview The belief that the brokerage will perform work more efficiently and accurately, thereby fostering customer goodwill and improving their bottom line.

Owner The Buntain family (owners) Trusted officials

Environmental Constraints Financial resources Staff adaptability Legal compliance


Appendix 2: BPMN Model – Broker-Client Process

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Appendix 3: Rich Picture Diagram


Appendix 4: TAM User Interface

User Reviews


Appendix 5: SigXP User Interface


Appendix 6: Risks and Mitigation

RISK MITIGATION CONTINGENCY

Employees do not fully understand the system

Implement feedback system from employees and customers

Increase training frequency 1

Customers are dissatisfied

after switching to new system

Notify customers of change, set expectation of initial delay, and

emphasize customer satisfaction during training

Provide temporary incentive (eg. discount, additional services) to

retain customers

2

Data transfers from Power

Broker to TAM is erroneous

Ensure that current database is cleaned up before transferring

data and that TAM sends someone with ample technical

expertise

Ensure that Power Broker is still available for a few months after

the conversion

3


Appendix 7: Project Baseline and Baseline Management Plan

Baseline Baseline Management Plans

Requirements gathered are not sufficient to allow for thorough and accurate analysis of the work system

Always communicate with the stakeholders to confirm accuracy and direction of analysis before moving onto the next step

Before gathering together to form a final analysis, do individual work to ensure that all aspects are covered

Scope creep (going beyond scope)

At the end of every activity, review and refer back to the scope defined in the beginning of project

Document all work and activity to ensure traceability


Appendix 8: Work System Requirements


Appendix 9: Alternative Evaluation

Legend:

= Not compatible

= Fully compatible


Appendix 10: Implementation Timeline

Documents

Work Systems Analysis Report