TCS helps migrate two million UK insurance policies to a single IT platform
LONDON, UK, July 27, 2010: Diligenta, a leading business process outsourcing (BPO) provider in the UK and a subsidiary ofTata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: TCS.BO, NSE: TCS.NS), the leading IT services, business solutions and outsourcing firm, announced today that it has completed the consolidation of two million customer policies in the UK from multiple legacy systems onto a single integrated system, using a simplified and modern cloud infrastructure. These policies will now be based on the TCS BaNCS Insurance platform, a proprietary solution developed by TCS.
Diligenta embarked on this innovative transformation program with its first client, The Phoenix Group. The objective of this program was to improve operational efficiency with a view to enhance the customer experience for the policyholders.
Tony Kassimiotis, Managing Director, Operations, Phoenix Life said, “This is great news for our customers and will mean a better overall experience for them. For instance, two million of our policyholders will have, in due course, full access to self service and on-line request services through the Internet. They will also see a reduction in turnaround times when asking questions about their policies. We are really pleased to be working with both TCS and Diligenta on this transformation program and are looking forward to realizing further benefits as we progress.”
This is also a significant capability achievement that will benefit Diligenta’s future clients. The utility model will ensure that when Diligenta writes new contracts, it can consolidate the policy portfolio of new customers onto the same TCS BaNCS Insurance platform. This will benefit both Diligenta and its clients through economies of scale with infrastructure and on-going operations and maintenance. A major benefit to clients will be Diligenta’s ability to react quickly and effectively to any major regulatory change. An additional service will allow customers to receive instant quotes for maturities, surrenders and transfers over the phone.
Phiroz Vandrevala, Chairman, Diligenta and Executive Director, TCS said, “The success of this transformation program reinforces Diligenta’s strong position in the UK life and pensions outsourcing market and signifies a step change for the industry, in response to both regulatory reform and changing customer needs. We are well-placed to support customers’ needs in this rapidly-evolving environment, and this project once again demonstrates our ability to deliver real business benefits through our specialized industry expertise.”
Suresh Menon, Chief Executive Officer, Diligenta said, “Diligenta’s state of the art platform and extensive expertise in the UK life and pensions industry has ideally positioned us to partner with the Phoenix Group to deliver this significant milestone. The transformation process has been successful and we look forward to future opportunities to deliver similar state of the art projects within the insurance sector.”
Charles Juniper, Insurance Sector Analyst at BPO specialists, NelsonHall said, “This is a significant achievement on the part of Diligenta. Migration to the BaNCS platform will allow Diligenta to accelerate the pace of cost savings through high levels of automation, reduced product templates, cleansed policyholder data and customer portals. The slowdown in sales of life insurance products in the mature UK and US markets is forcing the Boards of insurers to seriously assess the use of BPO models, particularly for closed blocks. Clients are looking for BPO providers with strong capabilities across a number of dimensions including operational improvement, direct control of platform development, first-rate migration and consolidation skills, a highly integrated multi-shore delivery model and a proven track record. With this milestone, Diligenta will be in a strong position to capture new life insurance BPO business going forward.”
About Diligenta Ltd
Diligenta, TCS’ UK FSA regulated subsidiary was established in 2005 to specialize in the provision of business process outsourcing (BPO) services for the UK life and pensions industry. Diligenta currently employs 940 people and its headquarters are situated in Peterborough UK.
Diligenta entered the UK Life and Pensions marketplace in 2006 by securing a £486 million deal with the Phoenix Group (formerly known as the Pearl Group), making it the second largest firm in the UK to service this sector. Offering a full BPO, Diligenta provides a number of the Phoenix Group companies with call centre, back office administration, IT, HR, finance and accounting services.
In January 2008, Diligenta secured a second client when it won a contract to deliver BPO services to Sun Life Financial of Canada's UK operations (SLF UK). The services, which commenced in May 2008, were estimated to be worth over £100 million over the life of the contract and involved administering a further 500,000 life and pensions policies. This operation was run out of Basingstoke UK.
TCS has also established an innovation lab at the Peterborough site. The lab acts as a “hub” for the global Co-Innovation Network in the UK, encouraging collaborations between customers, academics, global alliance partners, start-ups and venture capitalists.
About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™,recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata Group, India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 160,000 of the world's best trained IT consultants in 42 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of over US $6.3 billion for fiscal year ended March 31, 2010 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com.
Note: This TCS release and other news announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at http://www.tcs.com.
TCS media contacts
UK
Email: priyanka.mehta@tcs.com
Phone: +44 207 245 1394
Global
Email: pradipta.bagchi@tcs.com
Phone: +91 22 6778 9999
India
Email: ashish.babu@tcs.com / h.ramachandra@tcs.com
Phone: + 91 22 6778 9077/+91 22 6778 9078
Europe
Email: abhinav.kumar@tcs.com
Phone: +32 22821927
