An interface build-up of automated processes to create and maintain Product Tables for every insurance product.

1. www.niit-tech.com
Intelligent Interface
An interface build-up of automated processes
to create and maintain Product Tables for
every insurance product.
Sheilza Gupta
NIIT Technologies White Paper

2. CONTENTS
Introduction
3
Commission Product Tables
3
Conventional Process - Doing it ‘Manually’
3
Challenges Associated with Conventional Approach
4
Need of an Intelligent Interface
4
How does NIIT Technologies Solution Work
4
Advantages of using Automated Approach
5
Challenges Associated with the Automation
5
Comparison of Manual Vs Automated Process
5
Conclusion
6

3. INVESTMENT
FINANCE
CAPITAL
BANKING
INVESTMENT
WEALTH
FINAANCE
MARKET
INVESTMENT FINANCE
CARGO CAPITAL
ECONOMICS
FINANCE
REVENUE
REVENUE
MATKET
INVESTMENT CAPITAL
CAPITAL ECONOMICS
MARKET
FINANCE
Introduction
In this challenging economic environment, financial service
providers are under constant pressure to achieve their targets by
selling their products to their customers via the producers (also
termed as ‘agents’).
The growing market of insurance has compelled these financial
biggies to not only satisfy their customers by giving them good
Realizing the fact that an intense mix of the products are launched in
the market today, there has come a need to simplify and accelerate
the process of creation and maintenance of various product related
tables - which define and explain every aspect of any new product
launched in the market from an agent’s perspective.
To support this business need, the underlying IT landscape needs to
have a rapid transformation.
service and pocket saving products, but also to entertain their agent
sales force by giving them good compensation, bonuses on
meeting thresh holds, special rewards etc.
This white paper aims at helping the financial organizations with an
Intelligent Interface, which is comprised of various automated tools
and will be capable to cater the ever changing requirements in the
These agents may be hooked up with the company either directly
(by being an employee) or indirectly (may be doing business via a
lifetime of financial products and also help in streamlining the
product build process and take it on a fast track.
broker- dealer). But trust me, maintaining this huge force of agents
requires a lot of tasks for the underlying IT landscape to do in order
to maintain, manipulate and implement very huge logs of data. This
Commission Product Tables
data may contain the commission rates provided to these agents at
Commission product tables are generally stored in form of relational
several points during the lifetime of the product, or may contain the
database and contain various commission patterns for agents who
bonuses that some agents will be rewarded with when they meet
sell insurance products for any organization.
their sales targets. This data may also contain the rules that will
apply to the agents and their compensations, if there is a lapse,
These tables are referenced by the commission engine to calculate
cancellation or termination happening to any product.
the amount of compensation (which includes the commission, any
bonuses etc.) that should be generated for a given agent at any time
Whenever a new product is launched into the market, there are
during the lifecycle of a product.
several details associated with that product that need to be coded
in the background in form of product tables, so that the IT teams are
able to cater the product throughout its life. These background
tasks include creation of Compensation Rate tables, Asset-based
tables, Bonus tables, general Product Rule tables etc. Now, since
we are talking about the finance industry, therefore, Compensation
Rate tables tend to be one of the most crucial ones out of these,
because, the agents are to be paid off using the rates present in
Conventional Process of Creating and
Maintaining the Product Tables
– Doing it ‘Manually’
When doing it manually, the whole process of build of the product
tables can be broken down into the following phases:
these tables.
3

4. Data Acquisition: The data required for theproduct tables is
This interface should also hit the missing point in the conventional
acquired from the product build team which involves:
process. It should conduct a detailed validation of the soft data
— Actuaries - who actually design the product and evaluate the
with the hard data and then implement this data into production
various costs associated with the product.
with minimal manual intervention.
— Compliance team - which makes sure that the product, satisfies
every legal obligation.
Data Mapping: The business teamprepares ‘Master Grids’ with all
the information they have for the product.
Data Implementation: This ‘Master Grid’is manually coded into
production environment by a member of the IT Team.
How does NIIT Technologies Solution
Work?
Following steps outline the functionality of the interface:
Data Acquisition: As earlier, the data willbe received from the
product build team.
Data Mapping:
Challenges Associated with the Current
Manual Process
Reduced Productivity: Since the quantityof the data involved in
these tables is very huge, manually putting them into production is
too big of a task to be completed in a short time. It may take
several weeks for dedicated SME resource to get completed with
the updates and put them all into production.
Reduced Accuracy: Since theimplementation task is conducted
manually, the person has to flip between various screens in order
to put the data into production tables. Therefore, the team is
always at a risk to put in incorrect information in the tables. Also,
there is no automatic validation process in place which ensures
data accuracy.
Increased probability of overhead tasks: In case there is a
mistake in any of thetables and it is not caught in time (which is most
probable to happen), lots of overhead tasks will pop up in the picture
which would include calculation of the excess or deficit amounts of
compensation paid, manual adjustments, chargebacks etc.
— This data will be converted into a Master Grid by the Business Team.
— The commission product build team puts the Master Grid in the
form of various templates in MS Excel format. These templates
can be created using various macros defined on the Master Grid.
Data Transformation: The exceltemplates will automatically be
transformed into production-ready form. The tools in the interface
will convert the templates into machine readable form and then
upload the templates into the system in a similar format as that of
the existing production Product Tables. Since this process will now
be automated using the tools, so it be just a matter of few minutes
to transform numerous templates having thousands of data rows in
them into production ready format.
Data Validation: The validation will beconducted through a
process similar to the QTP (Quick Test Professional) process. The
tools in the interface will take care of the validation process and
ensure that the production-ready form of data is in compliance with
what has been coded in the Master Grids.
Data Implementation: The data will beimplemented into
production automatically.
Need of an Intelligent Interface
A look at the disadvantages of the manual approach to create and
maintain these tables necessitates the requirement of an interface
which is intelligent enough to accept the ‘Master Grids’ built by the
product area, and automatically transform them into a production
ready form.
4

5. Advantages of using Automated Approach
Following are the advantages of using the automated approach:
Reduced Operational Cost: Since thewhole process will now be
automated, the total operational cost in developing and
maintaining the product tables will be cut down considerably.
Increased Productivity: Reducedmanual intervention will help
Ease of deployment: The automatedapproach will enable us to
implement any new data or any changes to the existing data much
more quickly and easily.
User Friendly: The automated tools thatform a part of this
intelligent interface are easy to use by even a naive user.
enhance the productivity of the resources. Professionals will no
Challenges Associated with the Automation
longer be spending hours to put the data into production manually.
The business team for the product area needs to be well equipped
with the methodologies to create the templates.
Increased Accuracy: The introductionof QTP validation will
ensure that the data is 100% accurate and not prone to any
The tools in the interface will need to be updated in case there is
mistakes. The data will be compared with the Master Grids,
any update in the information that would be required to be coded
which will make sure that there is absolutely no chance of
as compared to the conventional information. However, NIIT
making any error in any of the tables created during the
Technologies makes this simple by maintaining the interface and
complete process.
also take appropriate steps to enable the client to do it.
Conventional Process
Data
Mapping
• New product's data
taken from the
product build team.
Data
Acquisition
• Business Team - Builds
the Master Grids.
• These Grids have all the
attributes which were
set by the product
Build Team.
• A person (usually an IT
SME) finishes entering
the data present in the
Master Grids into
production using
manual approach.
Data
Implementation
5

6. Automated Process that Runs using the NIIT Technologies’ Interface
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Data
Mapping
• New product's
data taken from
the product
build team.
Data
Acquisition
• Master Grid is built.
• Master Grid
converted to
Templates.
Day 5
Data
Data Validation
• Automatic
creation of
production
ready files.
Data
Transformation
• Automatic
validation of
Production ready
tables with
Master Grid.
• Automatic
implementation
of the tables to
production.
Implementation
Conclusion
Moreover, companies that can automate and improve the time
The time has come to leave behind the conventional approach and
consuming process of implementing product tables will get their
take a step ahead on the path that leads to much easier, simpler
products to market faster and stay ahead of their competition.
and quicker method of creating and maintaining the product tables
using the automated method.
6

7. About the Author
Sheilza Gupta is an IT Technical Specialist in NIIT Technologies and has 10 years of experience
in insurance domain which includes more than 7 years of experience in the Distributed
Commissions System.
She holds a Gold medal in her post-graduation in Masters of Computer Application.
About NIIT Technologies
NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America,
Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance,
Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to
organisations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and
Government sectors. With employees over 8,000 professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global
standards of software development processes.
Over the years the Company has forged extremely rewarding relationships with global majors, a
testimony to mutual commitment and its ability to retain marquee clients, drawing repeat
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