Tripathi: The overall objectives were IT capabilities and culture transformation and delivering the business results of IT projects. This focus resulted in defining new priorities including major legacy platform replacement efforts in the policy area as well as the development and deployment of an enhanced agent portal and integrated underwriting capabilities.

These are large and complex initiatives and require a total commitment from the entire organization including the top leadership. You need to have a team and the leadership under you where everyone is committed to the same goal. I believe that one needs to have tenacity, belief that the goal is achievable, support from the management and all business colleagues and a continuous desire to work through the problems and challenges that are certain to surface at the most difficult times. I found that ambitious goals and accelerated time lines are essential in keeping everyone's attention and focus to the goal line. These large initiatives also need to have many milestones and achievement of each milestone needs to be celebrated and reviewed for change in tactics.

I strongly believe that successful implementation should clearly yield measurable business results. There is always a desire to begin measuring the results sooner than realized. There is an absorption period for these major changes to be completely accepted and adopted by the organization. The policy systems replacement initiatives are large and complex and if implemented successfully, would deliver the anticipated business value. In most instances, the business value has to be extracted by ensuring that technology change is accompanied by the process change and sometimes may require people change as well. Clearly the measurement has to be in terms of the business value delivered by the initiative.

Shop Talk: Two areas seem key to improved business results–the agent portal and the use of predictive analytics. Talk some more about how these two important initiatives were conceived and executed.

Tripathi: The agent portal was conceived as an entry point for all customer (independent agent) interactions. This was required prior to making policy systems changes and it also facilitated operation of multiple systems simultaneously as theagent portal directs customer to the appropriate system. The predictive analytics matches risk and pricing by utilizing complex models that are developed by using publicly available third-party data and customer-provided data. Predictive analytics is taking greater prominence in the insurance industry after being extensively used in the consumer credit and risk assessment. I believe predictive analytics will play an even greater role in the claims arena.

Shop Talk: You inherited a classic “legacy environment” at Harleysville–legacy systems, legacy people, and legacy thinking. How did you change the IT and business operations culture and what were the key challenges of doing so?

Tripathi: I absolutely believe that you have to have the right people in the right seat with the right skills. Alignment of these three is a continuous process and needs to be managed on an ongoing basis. Getting the right people the right skills requires both bringing outside talent in and training internal staff in the required skills. I always give business knowledge and experience a higher priority as well as ability to work collaboratively with the team.

Shop Talk: You dealt with a lot of vendors–both software and services–what do you consider the keys to successful vendor management?

Tripathi: I believe 'vendor management' is an inappropriate term and prefer to use “vendor partnership development and management.” For this partnership to be effective, one needs to have the right partner where there is a cultural fit and a clearly understood need for each other's success. It is not a one-way relationship and both parties must see a win-win opportunity. I believe that in the selection of the right partner, this trusted partnership is very important. Of course, the vendor's product must meet the business need from both price and functionality perspective.

No matter how strong legal contracts are built, I believe that most frequently the relationship helps achieve the solution when problems arise. So legal contracts are important and need to be fair to both parties, however, ability to resolve issues properly and quickly are of paramount importance. If one party realizes they have a bad deal, a successful relationship would be difficult to build. I've had some challenges with some of the vendor partners in my career. Having a face to face meeting with the right level of management has always resulted in solving the problem without making legal threats. However, a solid legal contract is absolutely essential before a partnership can be built and sometimes during the contracting process it becomes clear whether a long term relationship could be built.

Shop Talk: Why did you choose to replace the policy administration systems first, as opposed to claims or billing?

Tripathi: This decision really depends on the particular situation and the status of the systems. In Harleysville's case, the policy systems replacement was critical to business success drivers. Also, it appears to me that many claims issues and processes result from underwriting, product, and policy contract language issues. There needs to be clarity of data from the product and the policy contract for a good claims process to take place. I believe that is why the policy system is the critical foundation piece. Billing is an important component in the customer interactions but does not deliver high value unless there are billing system issues impacting the business.

Shop Talk: Were these major successes part of an overall systems strategy and if so what were the strategy's key objectives and measures and how was it developed and agreed upon?

Tripathi: Absolutely. Early in my tenure, a team of senior executives and I met over several months to hammer out a business-driven technology strategy. This created a five-year plan which we revisited and updated on an annual basis.

I do believe a systems strategy should be built upon the business strategy and should be in concert with the overall enterprise strategy. The development of the IT strategy requires active participation of the business leaders and a good understanding of current business issues. A thorough understanding of the competitive environment, economic environment, technology capabilities, and the organizational capacity for the financial investments over multiple years need to be integrated in the development of the IT strategy for it to be successful and accepted by the organization. For IT strategy to be approved and funded requires demonstrated success in the execution of the early initiatives, projects or programs. I strongly believe that each project, program or major implementation should include the business value it would generate beyond the typical ROI and the risks it would bring to the enterprise.

Shop Talk: CIOs tend to get the blame for failure and the acclaim for successes, but like the sports coach, you are only as good as the team that works for you. Talk about the key roles and responsibilities of team that made your vision a reality.

Tripathi: I strongly believe successful CIOs create teams and leaders underneath them who believe in the vision and can drive to the end goal. I always like to have smart people who understand the business and the technology and are able to work effectively and collaboratively with the business leaders and the staff. They need to be strong problem-solvers and need to be able to see the big picture. I have been fortunate to have these types of people in my team. I would fail if I did not say that strong communication at all levels is absolutely essential. I believe in full transparency of the issues and the solutions.

Shop Talk: Of the major initiatives that you lead at Harleysville, what didn't go as well as you hoped and how would you do it again if given the opportunity?

Tripathi: It is the little things that you miss sometimes. Saying thanks to the team and the staff and building personal relationships are very important. Also, I have had my share of challenges and as I have looked back at these situations, I did not have the right person in the right seat focused on solving the right problem.

Shop Talk: You have a lot of industry exposure and created a great deal of interest from carriers, consulting companies, and the vendor community. What is next for Akhil Tripathi?

Tripathi: As I mentioned at the start of this interview, I am very excited to be looking at a number of different opportunities including developing a technology value advisory service. This advisory service is an opportunity for me to provide advice and support to CIOs and business leaders in deploying technology solutions for specific business functions. I should know more on this in the very near future.

If you are interested in hearing from Akhil Tripathi on the subject of Software and Vendor Selection please join us for the free Tech Decisions Web seminar on Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 12 noon EST. Registration information can be found at www.tech-decisions.com/webseminars.

George Grieve is CEO of CastleBay Consulting. Previously a CIO and still an acting consultant, he has spent much of the past 25 years with property/casualty insurers, assisting them in the search, selection, negotiation, and implementation of mission-critical, core insurance processing systems. He can be reached at 512-329-2619.

The content of Shop Talk is the responsibility of the author. Views and opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Tech Decisions.