InsurancePHB and Politics of Technology Acquisition

Paradigm shift is more or less the characteristics of an evolving society. Be it in partisan politics, religion and or business, the way and manner our actions and perceptions change the very tone of our everyday communication is as – or even more – interesting than the very nature of the change result itself. A couple of years back in the Nigerian financial sector, especially the Banking arena, the mere mention of a Back-office (core banking) application acquisition by any of the almost 100 Banks as at then, elicited a barrage of rhetoric from the management about being ‘technology-driven, advanced, innovative,’ and the etceteras that go with it.

Then it used to be a certainty that signing up new software (either as replacement of an existing one, or a virgin acquisition) by any of the Banks will be followed by a flurry of congratulatory media advertisements from their partners and suppliers. All in a bid to show how well positioned the Bank in question will now take up the mantle of ‘Leading technology-driven’ Bank – all because of a technology acquisition! Well the media never minded, who will when such advertisement revenue comes hulling down like confetti.

Ironically, majority of the Banks of that era that celebrated technology acquisitions, were among those that didn’t survive the consolidation of the sector. So one may like to ask: how come the magic of the technologies at their disposal couldn’t save them? Couldn’t the technological superiority transmute into business superiority? The simple answer to these questions is that technology on its own is no shortcut to business edge.

It is quite obvious that of all the players in the Nigerian financial sector, only the Insurance carriers are more or less immune to the fanfare associated with technology acquisition in an economy that is still trying to understand the value technology can give them in their business. Some die-hard pessimists will readily attribute that to the seeming lack of interest of Carriers to go the way of technology to drive their business. That thought may have some truth to it, but a recent development in the local insurance sector has proven that the lack of celebration for technology acquisitions is really an ‘Insurance thing’.

That development of course, was the recent go-live of the seven month long implementation process of the Agilis Core Insurance application (from the stables of Agile Financial Technologies) at InsurancePHB Nigeria. The implementation process, an effort accomplished by old-hands in application software vending in Nigeria FASYL, received the sort of media coverage that would have been considered ridiculous were it to be in the days the same FASYL was jostling for the next back-office contract for Nigerian Banks.

Were it to be in that era, the InsurancePHB implementation (not only because it will be the first major account for Agile FT in Nigeria), would have gotten a blow-by-blow account of how ‘professional and fast’ the process was going. But from last year that the project was jointly announced by the Carrier and Agile till it went Live a while ago, nothing was heard about the implementation.

Even in describing the sort of value his company will be deriving from this major acquisition, the management of InsurancePHB were very modest in their remarks. The software, according to the Managing Director/CEO of the Carrier, Mr. Anselem Igbo, are targeted at enhancing all aspects of Insurance PHB's business processes, reducing time-to-market, effectively managing turnaround times for policy issuance, speedy claims settlement and generating consolidated financial statements. At least they know what they are expecting!

To make it very clear, InTech Thoughts would very much want to commend the management of InsurancePHB for the very cautious and professional manner with which they’ve handled the publicity around the implementation process up till now. This is because, the days of celebrating technology acquisitions without adequate understanding of that technology alone is no magic wand for business transformation and success. With the Nigerian Insurance sector gradually adopting world class core insurance technologies, it is hoped that they emulate InsurancePHB in demonstrating technology value proposition rather than hype and the politics.