Using information effectively in order to drive business decisions is one of the most important and powerful contributions that well-organised and easily accessible information can provide to any business. For insurance companies risk analysis is crucial to providing clarity around business decisions. SA Eagle recently implemented three data warehousing pilot projects that have proved critical for planning and crystallising the company`s business decisions.
Richard Roos, Group IS manager at SA Eagle, says that the company chose SAS Institute because of the company`s data warehousing solution, capacity for in-depth analysis, a complete solution approach, and the strengths of its statistical analysis tools. "We chose SAS Institute because we wanted to work with a market leader. We also know that insurance analysis is not a new field for them," remarks Roos.
"One of the benefits of the project is that now we are able to get a better understanding of the makeup of our risk classes and we can segment and analyse high risk areas, limiting our exposure to bad risks. We are getting to a point where we can proactively adjust our risk exposure," says Roos.
SA Eagle`s initial requirements included information regarding rating of risks, profiles of customers, profitability, and financial reserving. They also needed a solution that would allow them to analyse these further according to classes of business, location, type of insurance cover, and so on.
Data warehousing projects have traditionally had a bad name - estimates are that only five percent of projects in Europe have reached fruition. SAS Institute has adopted a different methodology to the "big bang" approach points out Frank Trivella, SAS Institute South Africa marketing manager, and the company prefers to build a data warehouses in small steps.
Ashley de Klerk, regional sales manager, says that because of the success of this data warehouse project the next phase is under consideration by SA Eagle. "The significance of this project lies in the fact the SAS has been able to implement the data warehouse using data from an AS 400 environment. This took us four months and we recently delivered the first part completed."
Roos confirms this saying that once the current projects are bedded down the project will be extended to other areas of insurance. "All our three pilots have been successful and well received within SA Eagle."
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