1. Prioritize the solution and process options presented in the case study, providing appropriate supporting details.
2. Suggest indicators and KPIs that could help support prioritization and measure success post-implementation.

Case Study

The Manitoba Mutual Insurance Co. (MMIC) has assessed its current solution and enterprise limitations and found their current capabilities lacking. They are not able to deliver the desired value to the customer. They have identified several key solution and enterprise limitations that will seem familiar from past chapters of this ongoing case study. They would like you, the lead business analyst on the project, to recommend options to increase the value of their current solution.

Below are the solution scope criteria that are being evaluated, the business objectives collected so far, and the solution and enterprise limitations with the current solution.

Your objective is to review these items and prioritize the solution options that have been identified.

MMIC wants to get the most important changes done in the next 12 months, so the project's time is limited. Having said that, they are an insurance company, with fairly significant funding, so money is not a concern, and they'd like all the options that are presented to get done eventually. If you need to make a backlog of changes, prioritize them. Don't pursue changes that are redundant or conflict with other changes.

Solution Scope

The scope of the current solution being considered is provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Solution Scope

Current State Solution Scope	Future State Solution Scope/Options
The customer self-serve portal (currently view only policy details)	Customer self-serve policy changes, Quoting functionality, Bind and issue
The production and distribution of insurance documentation	Electronic distribution, Document consolidation, Document formatting upgrade to PDF
Manual quote-to-issue reporting	Automated quote-to-issue reporting

Business Objectives

The business objectives captured thus far should serve as a guide for prioritizing the solution options. As stated in Assignment 2, customer satisfaction is very important to MMIC. So, while providing internal value is important, you are encouraged to give more weight to improving the customer experience.

Table 2: Business Objectives

ID	Business Objective	Improves Customer Experience (External Value)	Improves Processes or Solution (Internal Value)
BO1	Enable existing customers to edit characteristics of their policies themselves (e.g., add or remove coverages, change coverage limits).	High	Medium
BO2	Save the customer time.	High	Low
BO3	Save Underwriting time for simple changes.	Low	High
BO4	Provide an automated quoting process for any changes applied that provides consistent rating.	High	Medium
BO5	Collect data for reporting on all quotes and subsequent issuance of policies to identify how frequently clients commit changes.	Low	High
BO6	Reduce the cost of printing and distributing documents.	Low	High
BO7	Provide an alternate (non-paper) delivery mechanism for documents (email, or via the self-serve portal).	High	High
BO8	Improve the efficiency of the document production and distribution processes to reduce operational costs.	Low	High
BO9	Improve the presentation (formatting and content) of all insurance documents to improve customer perception of our business.	High	Low
BO10	Eliminate redundant document types to improve efficiency and reduce customer confusion.	High	High

Solution and Enterprise Limitations

The limitations that were discovered include those listed in Table 3 and Table 4.

Table 3: Solution Limitations

ID	Limitation Description
S1	The self-serve portal currently only allows the customer to view their policy coverages and premiums.
S2	The current printing solution (facility, equipment and tools) is expensive to maintain.
S3	The current document production solution is capable of text formatting only, no rich formatting.
S4	The current document production solution contains many redundant document types.
S5	Currently, underwriters must manually track quotes and when these are bound and issued, which is prone to error and gaps in records.

Table 4: Enterprise Limitations

ID	Limitation Description
E1	The print shop is across the parking lot from the head office, and resources working on the documents are located at both locations, requiring manual moving of documents.
E2	The current process for document production and distribution is highly flawed and inefficient.
E3	Unfortunately, there are resources (team members) whose roles are redundant (Document Assistants).
E4	Underwriters are currently overwhelmed with the amount of quotes they have to process, many of which do not get issued, which also results in them neglecting their reporting duties.
E5	MMIC is an insurance company that is spending significant resources operating a printing and distribution facility; this decision made sense 20 years ago, but it is outside of its area of expertise.

Solution Options

Directly related to addressing the solution and enterprise limitations, the project team has brainstormed options for addressing these limitations and improving the overall solution value.

Table 5: Solution Options

ID	Addresses Limitation	Option Description	Ballpark estimate of duration of work
S1	S1	Update the customer portal to include quoting and issue functionality for new customers of personal property.	6 months
S2	S1	Update the customer portal to include policy change functionality for existing customers (that would leverage quote and issue functionality from SO1).	4 months
S3	S2, S3, S4, E1, E2, E3, E5	Outsource all document production, printing and distribution functionality. Eliminate redundant documents internally prior to or as part of engagement with vendor. Cross-train or eliminate redundant resources.	18 months
S4	S3, S4	Purchase a new document production solution capable of better document formatting and flexibility for document management (creation, updates, removal of documents).	8 months
S5	E1, E2, E3	Move (co-locate in same building) and cross-train resources working on the document Production and Distribution process (except Underwriters) and work on improving that process.	3 months
S6	S5, E4	In addition to SO1 and SO2, update the customer portal to include an integration to the reporting server (and subsequently Collaborate, the internal sharing site) to create and distribute Quote-to-Issue Ratio reports.	4 months
S7	S5, E4	Cross-train Document Assistants to work on reporting with Underwriters. Underwriters simply log their information, and the assistants build the reports.	3 months

Along with the options, the team had to make some assumptions.

Table 6: Assumptions

Option ID	Assumption Description	Assumption ID
SO1	A1	Assume this aligns with business objectives. We might be overextending ourselves and should confirm with sponsors and key stakeholders.
SO1, SO2	A2	Assume customers want this functionality. We don't have a market analysis to confirm this yet.
SO3	A3	We are assuming that outsourcing this will save us money in the long run. The implementation is expected to take 18 months, and we expect to break even on the cost of this major change after 3 years, at which point we will begin saving money.
SO4	A4	We're assuming that customers will appreciate new documents. We need to do a market analysis to confirm. If we purchase the new technology, how will we support it?
SO5, SO7	A5	We assume that resources want to change roles and be cross-trained. We could lose some resources and would need to be prepared to offer alternatives in some cases.
SO6	A6	We assume that this information will help Actuarial to improve products, but we're not sure how it's going to be used.

Exercise

Exercise 1: Prioritization Approach

Select an approach for prioritization and briefly explain (a sentence or two) why it is appropriate in this situation and given knowledge gained about the business thus far. NOTE: Negotiation is not a valid option in this assignment, as not enough work has been done to understand stakeholders in previous assignments. You must choose from grouping, ranking and time boxing/budgeting.

Exercise 2: Prioritize the Options

Prioritize the solution and process options presented in the case study, providing appropriate supporting details for each option. Justify your prioritization by explaining:

• the impact to the potential value (or alignment with desired value);
• the cost (in time duration) and how it fits in the overall 12 month schedule; and
• any risks with implementing the option.

If you need to make a backlog of changes, do so, and prioritize them. Don't pursue changes that are redundant or conflict with other changes.

Indicators and KPIs to Support the Prioritization

Select indicators and/or KPIs and the Unit 1 notes that would support the options you have recommended and help to measure their success once implemented. If none are appropriate, suggest new ones. One indicator per solution option is sufficient.