A PAN ASIAN CRASH-TESTING SUCCESSFOR A GLOBAL INSURANCE COMPANY

Tommy Chen had a job on hand. He had about five weeks left to go-live in meeting a regulatory compliance. The incumbent vendor was chary of such a tight schedule and seemed to be developing cold feet. With time running out, all Tommy could think of was to check with his colleague, Mukesh Patel who was known to have earned high praise for meting a similar deadline. He had heard that Mukesh’s company, a global insurance major had implemented a multi regional rollout for consumer line products under almost similar time pressure. Tommy called up Mukesh who was based in Singapore. It was Friday afternoon. Mukesh confirmed that his task also involved meeting a crucial regulatory compliance in four weeks flat. He was then in a similar jam because the incumbent vendor whom he took for granted had backed off at the last moment. Holly of hollies the incumbent vendor was the same one that Tommy was saddled with. Arvind did not want to reveal the name of the new ‘Acceptance Testing (UAT) partner’, whom he called a White Knight (W’Knight), that rose to the occasion and bailed him out, unless Tommy flew down to Singapore for a day to hear the full story and then judge for himself. Meanwhile, Mukesh had to get his management’s clearance to share his experience with Tommy. ……….. Tommy arrived in Singapore by Monday night and was at Mukesh’s office early next morning.

Challenges faced: Mukesh explained that: -

T r u s t t h e E x p e r t s

• The application had to meet statutory requirements within the very limited time available for UAT

• Apart from the multiple satellite systems, there were different provincial regulations with distinct regulatory interfaces and hence the testing was to be a race against a time

• Multiple stakeholders had to coalesce as a single team and the White Knight had to take responsibility for delivering within the stipulated timelines

• The planned implementation was to be a multi country roll out in Asia with unique compliance and regulatory changes from country to country

• Some of the screens of the application were entirely in the local language

• A thin testing window would lead to a narrowed UAT schedule

• Daily releases to the UAT environment could result in numerous regression issues

• Involvement of multiple stakeholders spread across different time zones; – The leadership team from USA, PMO from Singapore, IT team from Malaysia, Global shared services team from the Philippines which handled Data warehousing and few downstream satellite systems, The development vendor from China and regional business-user teams from the respective countries

Global Insurance Case Study

Project Scope

Mukesh elucidated that the project scope involved testing for a multi-country rollout of core insurance applications for consumer line products covering the entire life cycle of Policies from Quotations, New Businesses, Endorsements, Cancellations and

Channel Management until Claims-Management for Auto Products. The scope also included testing functionalities which had a complex integration with external systems including the provincial Insurance Association, Payment Gateway, SMS Gateway, Subrogation Interface and other downstream systems.

The White Knight’s approach

Mukesh elaborated that the W’Knight’s team consisting of a subject matter expert (SME), test manager (TM) and about 8 testers were involved in the engagement in the first country.

With the help of its ready to use test repository consisting of a functional checklist, business processes and functional test cases, the Knight was able to identify the functional gaps in the requirements provided by the customer within a week of commencing the project.

The requirements were enhanced by filling the gaps and ensuring 100% functional coverage.

In addition to the structured study of the Functional Specification Documents (FSDs), the planning phase involved intense discussions with respective stakeholders associated with the project to understand the intricate business rules.

The W’Knight’s repository for non-life insurance was the base document on which business rules, functionalities, region specific rules and other requirements were customized.

System Flow

E-mail SMS

Peripheral Apps

Online Payment

POS

Payment GatewayCore Insurance Application

PrintService

MOTOR Regulatory Interfaces

Tested byThinksoft

LEGEND

Reports

ReceiptSystem

Database

External User

Web Enquiry db

Consumer Direct

Customer Relationship

Web Enquiry

Existing Interfaces

External Authentication

Single Sign On

SalesPlatform

Back officesServices

InterfaceFrame work

Internal User

Back Office log on

Policy & ClaimBoolding Enquiry

New RegulatoryReports

FinanceApplication

Report Extract

Existing Apps and Interfaces

• The W’Knight’s team executed a compressed regression test pack for the smoke test, which helped to identify very crucial functional defects even before the actual testing has commenced. Trivial as it may seem, one such defect related an error in the premium calculation for one of the covers, which in turn affected the total premium. Only a domain critical eye could have spotted such errors without much ado.

• Considering the reusability of the test design, test data was mapped away from the test design document so that any change in test data would not have an adverse impact on the nature of test design.

• This significantly reduced the time taken for the planning phase and in turn reduced the time and cost incurred during planning.

• Also, this approach provided the flexibility to use the scenarios with very many test data during the course of execution.

• The engagement was completed within the agreed timelines.

• With the creation of customized reusable test assets, the insurer was able to reduce the cost & effort for the next regional rollout, with the result that for the next country the number of testers deployed came down to almost half the previous number.

Value Addition

• Use of Knight’s generic test repository led to a saving of 60% on the test design cost.

• The requirements provided by the insurer were compared against the master functional list from the test repository and the critical functional gaps to the extent of 35% were highlighted. - The entire functional requirements related to Channel Management were missing in the requirements provided. This was added after Thinksoft highlighted the same.

• Regression test pack with nearly 30% of actual cases ensured complete regression

The above approach resulted in a better Return on Investment (ROI) and provided a superior customer experience.

It was nearing lunch time and Tommy was getting impatient to

know the name of the White Knight. “Can’t you guess from what

you know of the market”, asked Mukesh. Could it be Thinksoft

Global mused Tommy. Right you are said Mukesh and if I’d given

you the name earlier would you have been as convinced as you

are now, he asked. Boy O’boy is all that Tommy could exclaim?

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Global Insurance Case Study

Mukesh admitted that as a rule he is not inclined to hand out

testimonials to vendors however good they are, lest that triggers

a testimonial war. This case was an exception.

Mukesh had written: -

It is a pleasure to work with the Thinksoft team and beyond a

doubt the team’s domain knowledge is extremely good

Mukesh PatelHead Testing, Global Insurance Company

Cient Speak

For more details, visit www. thinksoftglobal.com

T r u s t t h e E x p e r t s

Thinksoft

Generic Repository

Thinksoft

Generic Repository

Customized ReusableTest Assets

• Saving on effort with Thinksoftready to use repository

60%

• Shortened Design Cycle

• Reusability

20% 20%

= 100% Test Coverage