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Case Study

Business Process Improvement Case Study - International Underwriter

An international underwriter specializing in insurance and reinsurance in the property and casualty market.

An international underwriter specializing in insurance and reinsurance in the property and casualty market
Industry
Insurance
Services
Business Process Transformation
Links

The Problem

The client grew significantly through acquisition and needed to streamline efficiencies and reduce costs across their organization. To achieve this, Sutherland conducted in-depth onsite assessments where our team organized reviews by observing and mapping processes, and interviewing subject matter experts.

Overall the research revealed several opportunities for improvement:

  • Account reconciliation work was often reprioritized and lacked effective backup plans
  • Billing & collections, financial reporting, and general accounting activities were centralized for some businesses and not others
  • Accounts payable and travel expenses were only partially transitioned to shared services centers, leaving varied processes in disparate locations
  • European processing was mostly contained within each country and within the businesses, with very little shared services
  • Reinsurance accounting was being supported in multiple locations, using different technology in each location

The Sutherland Transformation

A solution was developed leveraging multiple locations across the globe that improved the overall utilization of accounts payable and accounts receivable staff, allowing them to focus on more strategic, forward looking activities. This also allowed Sutherland to handle the bulk of the transactional work. Additionally, Sutherland added infrastructure to enhance the current processing, increasing quality, transparency, leveraged digital methods to implement more sustainable and less paper-reliant processes, and decreasing the overall cost of technology.

Gains were both financial and qualitative in nature.

The Results

Gains were both financial and qualitative in nature. Processing performance was substantially improved for accounts payable and the billing to cash functions, while travel and expense processes were primarily unchanged. Long term performance will continue to improve as account reconciliations are automated, journal entry and closing activities are made more efficient, and paper transactions become electronic.

35%
reduction in costs
20%
increase in productivity
24-hours
reduction in cash application time

Through continuous process improvements, future implementations will further drive down the cost of processing, centralize ownership, and improve performance.