Professional services company KPMG in South Africa, and digital platform provider OutSystems have joined forces to drive digital transformation in the insurance industry.
The partnership will see the two organisations collaborating to provide financial services solutions that won’t just address the regulatory requirements, but also allow insurance companies to be more customer centric.
OutSystems provides a platform to rapidly build enterprise-grade applications four- to six-times faster than traditional development. This combination of speed and agility provide an excellent foundation to build the next generation of insurance applications.
“We are very excited about this partnership, and see this as a way of enabling our insurance solutions through technology,” says Brad McCreedy, partner at KPMG South Africa. “This will also extend our capabilities to offer innovative solutions to our insurance clients.”
“The introduction of stringent regulations is forcing insurers to take governance and compliance more seriously,” says Craig Terblanche, regional director at OutSystems South Africa. “But, to do that they need to move away from legacy application delivery to rapid and continuous delivery.”
The interaction between the broker and insurer is currently very fragmented. A significant amount of sensitive client information is still being held in traditional spreadsheets, posing a major security and compliance risk. The fragmented nature of where information is held also prevents the insurer from having a complete and clear view of their data.
“Insurers need to start taking responsibility, and be clear that it’s the insurer and not the broker that is ultimately responsible for the customers’ data,” says Terblanche.
“Customers are expecting more from the insurance service providers and demanding an easier way to interact. Customers will vote with their feet as new platform players provide complete customer engagement on terms that delight.”
The partnership will offer insurance companies the professional services and consulting expertise of KPMG coupled with the delivery and digital transformation capabilities of OutSystems Platform as the digital enabler.
This will give insurance companies an opportunity to not only address their governance and compliance concerns, but also start providing comprehensive customer services solutions that will allow them to become more competitive.
“The market is demanding a collaborative approach between service providers to deliver industry focussed solutions” says KPMG South Africa’s Deliana Labuschagne.
¨With KPMG’s multidisciplinary delivery team of insurance industry, risk and regulatory experts and the OutSystems platform, we can offer our insurance clients solutions that are integrated, controlled and automated, which is exactly what the industry and regulator is demanding.”
