In today’s market more than ever, Insurance organisations are operating in a highly complex and challenging environment. They need to maintain competitive advantage, deliver customer satisfaction and develop improved product offerings against increasing regulations, a rapidly changing industry structure and the need for greater cost efficiency.

Clearly in this market IT services and technology play a major part. The trend has been to see how the effective use of new technologies and the adoption of new IT sourcing models can deliver benefits. Common centralised systems, streamlined processes and work-flow, outsourcing and the use of off-shore resources are all being adopted and each one is bringing greater process and cost efficiencies. But what of the down-side?

Like every economic equation there needs to be a balance and for the Insurance market the ability to maintain competitive advantage by being able to rapidly deliver Customer and Product Innovation is being compromised. In what is an extremely competitive environment the characteristics of responsiveness, agility and innovation are not being supported by economies of scale or rationalisation of the process described above. The result being that:

Business departments are now looking to supplement their corporate IT services with an alternative….. Business / End User Computing solutions. In this back to the future shift in the implementation of IT, Business Users are recognising that although it’s fine to have the utility providing key IT services, these are never going to provide competitive advantage. What are needed are skilled specialists with knowledge of the business delivering rapid solutions…… locally, quickly, flexibly and economically.

OCS understands this and has been actively supporting clients in the Insurance sector, delivering small and medium sized solutions for companies operating across a broad range of Insurance sectors. In an increasingly competitive market, OCS delivers quality services to its clients featuring:

• Rapid Development – to enhance customer services and product development and hence maintain competitive advantage
• Cost effective – working in synch with alternative IT sourcing and delivery models
• Local – with an understanding of current industry developments and knowledge
• Flexibility – able to change as circumstances change.

Some example client assignments are listed below detailing OCS’ range of Insurance services delivered over the last two decades:

• OCS appointed Agile partner for major Insurance Broker
• OCS appointed Testing partner for Polaris UK
• OCS joins forces with TIW for Accounting and Settlment
• OCS delivers IT Management Consultancy Services to The Police Mutual Assurance Company
• OCS engaged by LogicaCMG to provide on-shore services on a Commercial Property Insurance System
• OCS delivers on-shore services to significant Underwriting Manager
• OCS supports on-line administration system for an International Run-Off Scheme.

Services

• Project Management / Business Analysis services utilising Insurance Project Managers / Business Analysts with experience of Lloyd’s London Market, Life and Pensions, Accounting and Settlement, Messaging, Re-insurance, Run-off, Risk Management, Policy Administration, Claims Processing, Outward Re-insurance, General and Commercial Lines
• Technical Insurance Solutions solved by in-house teams of Technical Architects with a variety of experience of Insurance applications and skill sets including .net and Java specialists
• Test Management / Analysis using ISEB qualified Test Managers / Test Analysts with experience and knowledge of Insurance systems, available for full-time and part-time assignments
• Provision of Analyst Programmers / Developers with Insurance experience for either long-term or short-term projects
• Agile methods / development undertaken by Insurance experienced consultants (.net, Java, Project Managers, Test Managers)
• Application maintenance and support of Insurance systems (including support of legacy systems)
  Large database of available Associates and Contractors with General, Life and Pensions, Lloyd’s London Market experience.