Moving off the Mainframe- Financial Close System

Over the past few years, we have worked hard as a company to become purely specialty.  Now that we have accomplished this goal from a business standpoint, our IT team is tasked with aligning this specialty focus with the realities of our existing technical infrastructure. This includes the complicated process of moving away from our old, mainframe systems.

To those not involved in the project or unfamiliar with our back-end systems, the term “mainframe elimination” might suggest an alarming plot from a Jason Bourne screenplay. But in reality, it is a long-term, hard fought effort by IT and various business partners to usher OneBeacon into its technological future. One of the first projects associated with the elimination involves moving the company’s financial close system to a new-and-improved platform.

Tech Talk
“The mainframe platform is outdated and expensive,” explains OneBeacon’s CIO Scott McClintock. “The elimination project will not only save the company money but in most cases, it will also provide our business partners with more streamlined and updated platforms to work with.”

There are four major systems that contribute to the financial close and will be replaced as part of the project.

1. OneStop– financial premium/loss reporting system
2. IBOR– calculates the Incurred But Not Reported (IBNR) numbers each month
3. MAES– Manual Adjustment Entry System where financial transactions can be entered before they appear fully in our system
4. Pools and Associations– Business we are required to receive from certain states

The systems work together and individually in a myriad of complicated ways that need to be replicated and, hopefully, improved on the new platform.  To assist with reviewing the current process and developing a technical roadmap for the new, IT brought in an outside vendor, Syntel, to audit the current programs and develop a technical plan.

“There’s been great collaboration between Syntel and our company,” says Joe Damaris, IT Manager and a member of the project team.  “We have daily meetings, which often turn into hours-long working sessions. Between all the various time-zones and countries, people are working nights, early morning and weekends on this project. We’ve all learned a lot from each other.”

Similarly, there has been an effective collaboration between IT and our corporate Finance and Actuarial groups, who are the most impacted by the project.

Business Sense
Karen Braun and Annie Ly of Finance, and Jeff Bellmont from Actuarial have been the key players, working beside IT to set requirements and test the new system.

“The current program is old and clunky with gremlins hidden in it,” jokes Jeff. “The new platform, will allow for better and faster access to data.”

Interestingly, the initial scope of the project was much narrower.

“The project started off as a lift-and-load,” says Karen. “It was about how we could replicate what the old system was doing. But then it turned into a more hands-on approach to improve the system and smooth the process.”

The system launched late last week and, although it is still early, all appears to be working smoothly. This is partly thanks to the great effort by the entire IT and business team who were heavily involved in dual testing the system. This involved running both the new and old platforms simultaneously to ensure the close is completed each month and that the new platform is performing the tasks it should be.

The “Dream Team”

“I like to say that we’ve had the dream team on this project,” says Ravi Govindarajan, IT Director and this project’s team leader. “When you have such fantastic team members from IT and the business collaborating, it just makes all the difference, especially in the case of such a challenging project, two years in the making. “

Karen and Annie agree, noting that the project “has been an extremely smooth process.  Our IT partners have done an excellent job of organizing the project and communicating with us.  We’re looking forward to  discussing even more enhancements in the future!”

If the dream team could have a MVP, members of the project seem to unanimously appoint the team’s technical architect, Bobby Leber, the honor.

“Bobby deserves a special ‘shout-out’ on this project,” says Annie. “He really delved into the nitty gritty to help us get to a system that not only meets but exceeds the requirements that we set.”

While honored by the team’s appreciation, Bobby says he can’t take the full MVP credit.

“The simple truth is that a different times during this long process, everyone was an MVP and gave 110%. Everyone on this project played multiple roles as both teachers and students. It’s been a great experience and I’m very proud of what we done here.”

Moving forward
Like many large-scale projects, launching is not the last piece of the puzzle.  The platform will remain an ever-changing tool as the team continues to find ways to improve and enhance it.  Already there are a number of “day two” items the team is planning to work on, including some upgrades that will provide enhancements for the actuarial team.

IT will also continue to task itself with stabilizing the systems, beyond just business functionality. Their goal is to monitor and continue to improve performance of the platform to enable a nimble approach moving forward.

In addition to the financial close system, future projects include transitioning the ACTS claims system, the RIS booking system and the user access and provisioning system off of the mainframe. Congratulations to the team for all they’ve accomplished.