| Background |
| Iron Trades (ITIC) is a medium-sized general insurance
company in the UK. Despite a solid client base, the company was facing decreasing market share and reducing profit margins. ITIC engaged on a
programme to review and update every part of the business, re-engineer all business processes, re-size and re-skill the workforce and implement an
enterprise-wide system. |
 |
| The project team of 120 was composed of staff from ITIC,
IBM, Ernst & Young and an Australian software company. The project duration was 4 years and had a budget of £25 million. |
|
| Achievements |
| The James Lambert consultant and programme director, Ranbir
Heyre, delivered the programme to time and budget despite changes in scope, requirements and advances in technology during that time. It won a
number of awards from IBM including one for the programme director. |
|
| The system implementation project was used as a template
and role model by IBM. The software package was marketed very successfully by IBM and the software company. |
|
| Challenges |
|
The key challenges were to manage the major changes to processes, people,
systems, business partners and clients in a co-ordinated and integrated way without impacting customer service during the change and to provide
real business value as a result. |
|
| Approach |
| A holistic
approach was adopted from the start incorporating all aspects into one programme. The no. 1 priority was the business need and drove the business
processes which drove the system development and configuration. |
|
| There were many people issues to be addressed including
redundancy and consequent poor morale, high stress levels, staff turnover and inappropriate skill levels. These required a people approach to
project management. |
|
| The project costs, at one time, were rapidly escalating
and required a value-based approach to control the scope and resources. |
|
| Benefits |
| ITIC reduced costs by over 30% and increased market share
by over 15% across the business as a result of the programme. The company became a leaner and more flexible organisation as was able to readily
adapt to changes such in the global insurance market and the advent of internet technology. |
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