A Massachusetts based insurance carrier selected a new cloud-based Policy Administration System platform, however did not have the bandwidth and/or expertise to test the system, migrate customer and policy data, and integrate the new system with their existing agency portal. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to assist with the implementation in three areas – QA/UAT, data migration/integration, and overall implementation advisory. The project included: BENEFITS: Cosenta’s involvement allowed the client to focus on communicating their business requirements to the vendor and ensured that the client was never the cause of delays in the implementation, which managed the risk and cost of a schedule overrun.
Policy Administration System Implementation
CHALLENGE:
Users at a Pennsylvania based company were dissatisfied with the accessibility of data in their aging data warehouse. Both data warehouse and the associated Business Objects universe were difficult to understand and use, and provided limited insight to guide business strategy. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to define and develop a data delivery and visualization strategy to improve data accessibility and analysis capabilities in the organization. The project included: BENEFITS: Business users were empowered to develop their own reports and perform their own analysis without IT intervention using technology they were already comfortable with (Excel Pivot tables). IT resources were freed to focus on long-term data planning activities.
Self-Service BI
CHALLENGE:
Growth of a New York based mid-sized company was hindered by lack of access to reliable, timely and actionable information. The organization needed to move beyond monthly reporting as the primary means of managing their product and regional expansion. SOLUTION: Data modernization was identified as a key component of their technology program, and development of a new Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) as the critical first step. The client engaged Cosenta to define and develop their EDW which included the following: BENEFITS:
Enterprise Data Warehouse
CHALLENGE:
A Pennsylvania based company struggled with multiple compliance, strategy and management related issues following the unexpected departure of their CIO. SOLUTION: Client initially engaged a Cosenta Principal to perform an IT assessment, and then subsequently to serve as their interim technology leader. The project included the following: BENEFITS: The client stabilized the organization, gained clear understanding of the current state, addressed short term risk, as well as gaining a coherent and defensible strategy for the longer-term. Management of the group was successfully transitioned when a new director was recruited.
Virtual CIO
CHALLENGE:
An upstate New York based food manufacturer had recently implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX to support their rapidly growing yogurt business. However, EDI errors caused many orders to fail, leading to unhappy customers and damaged relationships. In addition, since fixing the messages required knowledge of XML, expensive IT resources were required to process the failed messages. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged analyze the EDI problem and develop a solution on an abbreviated time frame. Cosenta found that most of the issues were related to employees at the company’s business partner incorrectly keying information including pallet and batch IDs into the system. The Cosenta solution involved: BENEFITS: The remediation backlog of failed EDI transactions was reduced from over two weeks to less than one day. The 3 person IT team responsible for fixing messages was eliminated entirely from the process and replaced with a single part-time business user.
Custom Development
CHALLENGE:
A New England manufacturer of industrial diaphragms struggled without applications to help with program management, business process automation, communication and collaboration. They had learned of Microsoft SharePoint, but were unsure on how to best deploy it to help with their organizational challenges. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to analyze the critical needs of the business and to deploy SharePoint solutions to address them. The solutions included: BENEFITS: The business benefited greatly from automating manual processes that were unwieldy and error-prone, and from the consolidation and centralization of many information sources.
SharePoint Development
CHALLENGE:
A regional personal and commercial lines carrier (revenues ~$300M) selected a new policy administration platform and requested help integrating it with their existing back-end systems (billing, claims, statistical reporting, data warehouse), some of which were over 30 year old. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to define and develop an approach to support the integration of the new system with the existing systems. Since the client’s goal was to retire their mainframe in the medium term, they asked that the solution minimize investment on that side. The final solution involved the development of an operational data store (ODS) in SQL Server, coupled with a business rules engine, which allowed the client to integrate the new system and transition another major system off the mainframe at the same time. The project included: BENEFITS: The new policy system was integrated without a hitch, and the new ODS delivered significant value to the business above and beyond what was originally anticipated by allowing SQL queries to be executed against raw transactional data, something that had not been possible on the mainframe.
System Integration
CHALLENGE:
A New York based organization determined that their legacy core system (mainframe-based) hindered innovation in product offerings, and prevented them from presenting a competitive web presence to customers and business partners. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to manage a system selection/RFP process which included: After selection, Cosenta assisted client with the product roll-out, including integration with their other systems. BENEFITS: A comprehensive market review ensured that the most suitable vendors were brought to the table for consideration. The client followed a formal, rigorous and defensible process to their final selection, and the documentation gathered throughout the process helped minimize the number of surprises encountered during implementation.
RFP / System Selection
CHALLENGE:
A Massachusetts based policy administration vendor experienced problems during the initial roll-out of a bundled 3rd party BI solution. They were uncertain whether to continue to roll-out, or to take a different direction. SOLUTION: Cosenta was engaged to perform an assessment of BI platform to determine: Product and competitive analysis determined that the product was viable for a subset of segments within client’s target market. Additionally, specific technology and process improvements would broaden its applicability and overall competitiveness. BENEFITS:
Product Assessment
CHALLENGE: