insuring
BFSI
against Paper-Pushing HDFC Standard Life Insurance has made a successful bid to get its people away from the clutches of paper files and back to the business of insurance. By gunjan trivedi
W
of paper racing around if a company handles about ten hat does it take to follow a paper trail? thousand policy files everyday. Now, imagine the impact Ask an insurance company. Take an on the organization’s turnaround time. Electronic insurance organization anywhere in content management and digitization of workflow was the world and it will look at paper as a imperative,” points out Rawlani. In 2003, HDFCSL necessary evil. That’s because with so many entwined embarked on a mission to cut out the paper chase and business processes with cascading results, variables and embrace Business Process Management (BPM). overlapping needs, insurers need to ensure well-defined The Mumbai-headquartered HDFCSL, a joint-venture workflows, which for unprepared companies means an between UK’s mutual life assurance company Standard avalanche snowballing of paper — and plenty of it. Life and HDFC, was started in 2000 to tap the evolving At one time, it got so bad that many insurers in the US life insurance market in India. As one of the first private — housed in multiple-storey buildings — used conveyor life insurance companies in India, HDFCSL’s operations belts to carry files across hundreds of desks through were characterized by manual processes that were added multiple departments. The mechanical solution, though incrementally to keep up with business requirements. it successfully reduced the time it took to move paper files In order to differentiate itself and tap the market around, didn’t address the problem. Sunil Rawlani, headmore progressively, it adopted the customer-centric information systems and technology of HDFC Standard approach and offered service as it's USP. As HDFCSL saw Life Insurance Company (HDFCSL), was certain he wasn’t unprecedented growth, their manual processes, layered going to put his money into a conveyor belt. unsystematically over time, started Rawlani was determined to crack under the pressure. to drain away all the paper The number of Excel that was clogging business worksheets, used to track efficiency. He decided to policies, mushroomed. introduce digitized content, Increased communication for automated workflow and new requirements began to agile, re-engineered processes. choke the organization. Multiple “Insurance is a conventional, Eliminating the problems of systems to handle status paper-based business with a paper-intensive workflow queries or communicating new 90-page files packed with with electronic content management decisions rendered supporting documents hopping management and BPM process control inconsistent across work-desks. These Giving business back its USP and inefficient, which hit the obese files then travel in and by focusing on service and organization’s ability to measure out of file cabinets, to agents, to not paper chasing. performance. All the while, the junior underwriters, to medical volume of paper exploded making institutes, to senior underwriters document-filing and handling and so on. Imagine the volumes
Greatest Challenges
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