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| Case Study |
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Support for Home-Grown BI system Helps Health Insurance Giant Ensure Customer Satisfaction and 24x7 Application Availability |
Patni assists UK’s leading health care and insurance service provider rapidly deliver on its business intelligence and data integration efforts, and also enables 24x7 support and continual service improvement leading to greater end user satisfaction and reduced operating costs.
The Client
The client is a leading provider of private health care insurance and health care services in the UK with 25 Hospitals, 300 Care Homes, the largest network of screening centres in Europe, over 3 million members and 40,000 employees.
The Challenge
The client was in the process of developing a home-grown MOI (Management of Operational Intelligence) system to seamlessly access, analyze and manage information pertaining to business performance and customer satisfaction. This project was part of its larger initiative of putting in place an application service framework. However, the client had not defined its service requirements, and delivered service support on an ad hoc basis.
To rapidly deliver on its business intelligence and data integration efforts the client felt the need to identify components of the MOI system that required service support on a sustained basis. It wanted to proactively identify service issues, and put in place robust processes for continual service improvement.
At the same time, it wanted to assess its existing BI strategy, and evaluate the robustness of its tools, techniques and standards in comparison with industry best practices. There was a need to standardize support operations, free key resources for more strategic work, and cut costs by outsourcing its support requirements to an offshore partner. It wanted to reduce costs, and shrink the time spent by its subject matter experts on support activities.
The client wanted to ensure enhanced customer experience and outperform the competition by partnering with a service provider that had the necessary expertise in the medical and life insurance domain. The partner would also analyze issues faced by its key stakeholders and identify solutions for the same. After scouting the market, the client identified Patni to lead it through the key technical and operational principles of present industry best practices, solution alternatives and practical implementation options.
The Solution
Patni rendered strategic direction, guidance and advice regarding technical/operational matters. It conducted an analysis of the client’s IT environment and assessed support requirements for its MOI system. Patni also assessed the client’s existing business intelligence strategy, key stakeholder issues as well as the current tools, techniques and standards.
Following the assessment, Patni proposed a 24x7 support model and created a staffing plan for the same. Patni defined the processes and workflows, and the SLAs for measuring productivity and quality metrics that would govern the MOI support services. Patni’s application service comprises a number of elements including standard services like:
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Break/fix |
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Planned maintenance (defects, change controls etc) |
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System testing |
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User Support |
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Operational Consultancy (technical advice) |
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General maintenance |
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Development and implementation of standards |
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Proactive maintenance |
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SLA defined based on productivity, quality and cost of service |
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Monitoring batch cycles. |
Following this, Patni finalised the transition plan with effort and schedule estimates for the support services. In order to ensure cost-effective service support Patni prepared a knowledge transition plan to be able to transfer the support from onsite to offshore.
The client’s primary reporting toolset is Cognos. Patni ensured that the operation and service of Cognos is available during normal working hours, and batch reports are executed in accordance with the set schedule. Patni provided the client tools to automate data extraction, and leveraged its expertise to manage the data quality and manipulation processes.
The Technology
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Sunopsis |
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Teradata |
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Oracle DB and PL/SQL |
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Unix Shell Scripting |
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Cognos 7 |
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Cognos 8 Reporting suite |
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Cognos 8 Planning suite |
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Cognos 8 Consolidation suite |
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Hyperion Essbase |
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SAS |
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The Benefits
Patni’s solution helped the client move from a reactive method of fault resolution to a proactive assessment of potential failure areas. Improvements in productivity and the initiation of proactive initiatives will bring about year on year reduction in costs.
In addition to this the client has been able to derive the following benefits:
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Reduced total cost of ownership by supporting the MOI system using the offshore model |
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Improved availability of the MOI system |
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Increased user satisfaction |
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Disengaged key resources from mundane operational tasks |
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Standardized the provision of service support |
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