The successful completion of a large-scale insurance data migration project in Africa requires more than just technical expertise. A recent successful implementation at a major African insurer offers valuable insights for other African organizations contemplating similar transformational projects.
About the project #
The insurer needed a partner capable of handling the complex data migration of a large book of active policies, whilst also ensuring business continuity throughout the process. And on a tight, immovable deadline.
Following an onsite migration study, Equisoft developed a tailored proposal and appropriate delivery plan. The plan was executed, and the policies successfully migrated. Here’s a view of what made the experience successful for this complex data migration and the learnings derived from the post project review:
Key Success Factors in Data Migration #
Organizational Best Practices #
1. Executive Ownership and Communication
Executive ownership, particularly from the Executive stakeholders, and open channels of communication were crucial for quick decision-making and overall collaboration. This high level of involvement from senior leadership ensured that any issues could be addressed promptly, keeping the project on track.
Moreover, the cultural alignment between the implementation partner and Insurer created a solution-oriented environment, in which strategies for finding the best way forward were favored over reverting to a client vs supplier dynamic.
2. Cultural Alignment
Cultural alignment between the vendor and insurer was another critical success factor. This alignment mitigated negative energy associated with a blaming culture and fostered a solution-oriented perspective. The positive working relationship between the teams was evident in their dealings and contributed to the project's success.
3. Trust and Credibility
Building a relationship of trust through credibility was essential for the project's success. The onsite data migration study facilitated immediate mobilization of the Equisoft team based on commitments from the insurer’s senior stakeholders. This trust allowed the project to move forward smoothly and efficiently.
The onsite data migration study is invaluable for quickly understanding the insurer’s data environment and business needs. It enables the vendor to create a detailed and relevant project plan, complete with timelines, resources, risks, contingencies and budget that will guide the migration.
Vendor Selection and Planning #
4. Experienced Partner Selection
The choice of implementation partner proved crucial to the project's success. Rather than defaulting to large consulting firms or selecting based solely on cost, the insurer invested time in understanding potential partners' delivery credentials and technical capabilities. This thorough evaluation process enabled them to select a partner with proven expertise, in both data migration and policy administration systems.
5. Reasonable Timeframe
One of the standout factors in the project was the creation of a reasonable scope linked to the timeframe for completion. In many cases project deadlines are estimated during planning but then the kick-off is delayed and the team is asked to still meet the original deadline. Or the scope and expectations are overly-optimistic given the timeframes available.
In this case, the insurer’s leadership demonstrated their experience by allowing a sufficient period for the project as originally outlined. This realistic approach ensured that the project could be completed as planned with the resultant levels of accuracy and quality.
Technical Considerations #
6. Building on a Foundation of Policy Administration Fields
The availability of foundational policy administration fields (basic fields like policy numbers, effective dates, coverage amounts, premium information) enabled the data migration team to produce the mapping, with high confidence, early in the delivery process. There were some gaps and deficiencies (which required refactoring), but the initial foundation was crucial for the project's efficient progress against the desired timeline.
This situation is common in insurance system migrations where legacy systems often contain decades of customizations and special cases that don't neatly map to modern systems, without having to perform additional configuration work.
7. Refactoring for Optimization
The decision to perform refactoring on the core administration system played a significant role in ensuring the configuration was optimized to handle the large policy volume. Refactoring is a way of restructuring and optimizing existing configuration code without changing its external behavior or functionality.
Refactoring in the context of Equisoft’s core administration systems refers to the process of restructuring and optimizing existing configuration code without changing its external behavior or functionality. Refactoring typically involves:
- Reorganizing rules and plans for better maintainability
- Standardizing naming conventions across configurations
- Optimizing rule execution paths for better performance
- Consolidating redundant rules or logic
- Cleaning up unused code segments
- Improving code readability and documentation
- Creating more efficient data structures
- Breaking down complex rules into smaller, more manageable components
Refactoring configurations is particularly important because insurance policy administration systems tend to accumulate complexity over time as new products and features are added. By refactoring regularly, insurers can:
- Reduce the technical debt within their IT landscape
- Make future version upgrades, changes and enhancements easier and faster
- Improve system performance
- Lower the risk of errors when making changes
- Make knowledge transfer to new team members more efficient
Tools like Equisoft/design can significantly simplify the refactoring process by providing better visibility into the configuration and more advanced editing capabilities than traditional tools.
This proactive approach eliminated the need for extensive optimization of SQL queries and other efforts during the go-live cycle processing.
Wrap up #
For African insurers planning data migration projects, these lessons highlight the importance of balancing technical considerations with organizational and cultural factors. Success requires executive commitment, realistic timelines, careful partner selection, and a solution-oriented culture. By following these principles, insurers can significantly improve their chances of successful data migration and system implementation.
Implementation partners looking to work with African insurers should also note these success factors, as they demonstrate the importance of building trust, maintaining open communication channels, and bringing proven expertise to the table. The combination of technical capability and cultural alignment can create a powerful foundation for successful digital transformation in the African insurance sector.
