Project Management

Project Management

Case Study: Tier One Suppliers Insurance Group (TOSIG).

Background

Tier One Suppliers Insurance Group (TOSIG)offer insurance to Tier One Suppliers, primarily on improvements such as buildings, fencing, stock yards, storage silos and machinery.  They also offer insurance for crops.  TOSIG have been in business for approximately 65 years and pride themselves on traditional values and maintaining long-term relationships with clients.  They underwrite insurance on 6.7 billion dollars worth of risk and have 150 agents in the field, maintaining offices in most major regional Tier One Supplying areas.  The organisational strategy is to maintain existing customers and increase the number of insurance products offered to clients.  They also want to grow their business by increasing sales of insurance to small and medium enterprises in regional areas.  Currently it is up to each agent to maintain information on their book of clients although information on policies is kept in a central database. 

Approximately every five years a site visit to the client is arranged so that the agent can confirm the details of the items they are currently insuring.  At this site visit the agent remeasures and inspects the property insured and enters the information (including the details of the insured) in a form.  The agent also has a discussion with the insured about changes in policies and any additional insurance products they may be able to assist with.  At the end of the visit the agent must re-enter the information into the TOSIG system and receive a report on the property.

There is concern that TOSIG are missing opportunities to sell more insurance because their agents do not have the ability to receive a report in the field.  Another factor is that currently agents spend a considerable about of time in the office entering information into the system from the site visit form, while TOSIG would prefer that they spent more time out in the field visiting potential and existing clients.  There is also an awareness at the managerial level that the clients could be risk managed better so that higher risk clients received visits more frequently while visits to low risk clients might be made at a longer intervals or by phone.  Currently this risk is managed by individual agents and there is awareness that some agents use these visits as an opportunity to sell more insurance or relationship build rather than managing the insurance risk, for instance they might insure a building for replacement when it is really at the end of its economic life and should be removed from the policy.

TOSIG is also aware of an increased threat from insurance companies who have not traditionally dealt with Tier one suppliers or have entered the Australian insurance market.  Currently the agents are issued with a vehicle, laptop with wireless dongle and Blackberry telephone. 

They have planned an upgrade to their information systems, starting with a new customer relationship system.  The idea is that the agents will be issued with tablets in which a customer number is entered and a form will be prepopulated with client and policy information.  This is to reduce the amount of time the agents spend entering data.  They will also be issued with laptops and smart phones which will integrate with the TOSIG systems which will be moved to the cloud.  From the company perspective they would prefer that the agents are able to do more work from their vehicle and much less time in the office.  The end goal is to close some physical offices to help minimise overhead costs. The agents have become aware of this plan and there is some bad feeling about the plan to close offices.  The agents are also resistant to the cloud based system as they are aware this will enable TOSIG to track their movements.

The management board has budgeted $10 000 toward a feasibility study to investigate the new system or yet unexplored alternatives. 

In your role as a Business Analyst you have been approached by the management board of Tier One Suppliers Insurance Group (TOSIG)for guidance on evaluating and selecting a suitable information system solution for their business.

follow the instructions contained in chapter 4 of the text.

1.    Title

2.    Scope overview

3.    Business case

4.    Background

5.    Milestone schedule (with acceptance criteria)

6.    Risks, assumptions and constraints

7.    Stakeholder list

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