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Part On e

Organization s, Manag ement, and the Networked Enterprise

Modernization of NTUC Income
CASE STUDY
TUC In com e (Incom e ), one of
Singapore's la rgest insure rs, has over 1.8 million policy hold ers with total asse ts of
S$21.3 billion . T h e insurer e mploys about 3,400 insurance advi sors a nd 1,200 oHke staff, with the majority located across a n e ight­ hranch n etwork. On Jun e 1, 2003, Income suc­ ceeded in the migration of its le gacy insura nce sys­ tems to a di gital web-based system. The Hercul ea n task required not only the upgrading of ha rdwa re and applications, it also req uired In come to stream­ line its decade-old business pro cesses a nd IT prac­ tices. Up until a few rea rs ago, Income's insuran ce processes we re ver tedious and paper-hased. The e ntire in surance proces started with custome rs mee ting an agent, fillin g in forms a nd submitting do cuments. The agent would the n submit th e forms a l branches, from where th ey were se nt by couriers to th e Offi Cf, Services department. The co ll ec tion schedule co uld introdu ce delays of two to three days . Offi ce Servi ces would log documents, sort them, a nd then send th e m to departments for und erwriting. Proposals wef(~ allocate d to unde r­ w riting staff, mostly randomly . Accepted proposals we re sent for printing at the Computer Services de partm e nt and th e n redistribu te d. For storage, all original do cum e nts were packed an d sent to ware­ houses where, over two to thre e days, a tota l of seve n staff would log and store th e do cu me nts. In all , pape r policies co mprising 45 million documents were stored in ove r 16, 000 carto ns at three ware­ hous es. Whenever a docume nt n eeded to h e re tri eve d, it would take ahout two days to loca te and ship it by co uri e r. Refiling would again take about
two