Johannesburg, 01 Jun 2018
Overview
Telesure Investment Holdings (Telesure) was established in 1998 to house the South African interests of the Guernsey-based international financial services group, Budget Holdings.
The group owns and operates several of South Africa's leading insurance brands and stands out with its multiple-channel, multiple-brand approach through direct sales, broker sales, aggregator sales and affinity partnerships.
All the companies in the Telesure group target different segments of the insuring public. They are geared to assess the needs of the market they service and provide products and distribution channels to best suit those needs.
Challenges
With a multitude of different companies, business areas and brands under its umbrella, Telesure was faced with hundreds of data sources. These sources each contained their own set of information, making version control near impossible.
According to David Smith, Data Science: Visualisation and Decision Support at Telesure, what the business needed was consolidation. "Per business area, reports were being created based on each area's own metrics, from their own sources, by staff in varying roles."
This resulted in divergent reports, impacting on the business's ability to make sound decisions based on real information.
Solutions
Telesure implemented QlikView in 2008. With Smith's support, the Telesure and QlikView journey began with a vision to consolidate the group's data sources into one reliable and accurate tool.
"This total consolidation is still the end goal, but we are much closer than we've ever been before," continues Smith. "With many business areas and thousands of staff, a uniform and associated approach to management, operations and finance is essential. QlikView has given us the power to achieve this."
Initially, there was some resistance to change from staff when the tool was first implemented. The employees were used to their traditional roles and methods. The results have won over the employees, who now request access rather than being asked to use QlikView.
When implementing Qlik solutions in any of the Telesure business areas, Smith confirms presentations of the tool's capabilities are always met with much excitement. "Staff are elated by the ability to navigate information and analyse it in a meaningful way, in real-time, at the click of a button."
At present, Telesure has hundreds of QlikView users. "We have tens of thousands of sessions on QlikView a month. Every day, there are analysts accessing the tool, retrieving information and reporting to their superiors. I believe that the business is heavily reliant on Qlik dashboards: functionally, operationally and financially," confirms Smith.
The most recent Qlik development at Telesure is the production of an executive dashboard. This not only puts high-level, vital information sets into the hands of the executive, but also lays the groundwork for using those dimensions to create one central dashboard across the entire business and all of its business units."
Benefits
Using QlikView, productivity is increased, and efficiency is ensured.
Reports now take minutes or hours to build, rather than weeks or months. As a result, employees can deliver more in less time, and at less cost to the company. "We've saved hundreds of 'man-days' by automating board packs and putting board packs onto Qlik."
The validity and reliability of the data analytics has been vastly improved. "When meetings are held, and metrics are shown, the Qlik platform is there to ensure the numbers talked about in any meeting come from a central point."
Smith adds the Telesure executive has decided that Qlik is the only way to report. Dashboards have been built to pass the Qlik benefits on to Telesure customers. The tool is used to manage surveys and "voice of the customer" information. "The ability to find claims and resolve claims quickly on Qlik is obviously a benefit that ripples through."
While Smith confirms that all Telesure's departments benefit from using Qlik, the Marketing and IT Service Desk Departments have seen incredible results.
"The Marketing Department now uses Qlik for strategic planning purposes. With access to real-time data analytics, the department can view Return on Investment against its activities daily." This gives marketing the information needed to adjust strategies and ensure campaign success.
"In the IT department, we loaded the dashboard on a TV screen, and it automatically reloads frequently to reflect real-time service levels. With this constant monitoring and visual feedback, the Department has shown huge improvement."
Future
Telesure plans to continue using Qlik to consolidate its mass data sets and deliver reliable reporting. Qlik NPrinting has been brought in to create reports from its QlikView documents.
To keep pace with Qlik's new innovations and developments, the long-term goal is to review the current QlikView models and bring them into QlikSense. "This is the next step, to ensure Telesure is prepared for where Qlik is going, to reap the benefits that can be attained through innovation."
Solution overview:
Customer Name: Telesure Investment Holdings
Industry: Insurance, medical, financial, property and hospitality (local and international)
Function: Executive, finance, human resources, IT, marketing, research & Development, Sales, Service & Support, Quality Improvement, Supply Chain, Operations
Geography: Johannesburg, South Africa
Challenges: With a vast range of business areas, and varying brands, Telesure's executives were faced with multiple reports being delivered, based on varying metrics from siloed sources, in inconsistent formats. Due to the size of the business, creating a monthly board pack could take one employee many days to complete.
Solution: Telesure deployed QlikView for all executive reporting. The business continues to expand the use of QlikView across its various business areas, with the aim of creating one central dashboard that serves the entire group.
Benefits:* Staff are more productive;
* Reliable reporting is delivered in minutes/hours rather than weeks;
* Marketing planning is more effective and ROI analytics instantly available;
* IT Service Desk has shown immense improvement in service levels.
* Increased overall efficiency, productivity & customer service
Data Source: Various, such as IBM AS/400, DB2, Excel, etc.
Twelve weeks to implement QlikView. QlikView was first implemented at Telesure in 2008. Having witnessed the benefits, the company continues to implement new applications every quarter. These additions are handled in-house, by a team of developers, led by Smith.
Time to value: One month to increase in productivity and efficiency. Within a month, real productivity benefits could be seen. The tool has saved Telesure hundreds of man-hours for each business area, a benefit that escalates as business areas are added.
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