For the sake of efficiency and agility and up-scaling the ability to innovate, insurers are moving ahead as they have come to the realization that legacy systems are a real impediment to these goals. It is clear that something needs to be done about this issue but the available option and demands are overwhelming. Global aero like any other company has had a legacy system that needs to be modernized. Since the 1960s the system has been in use and is based on aging developmental standards with diminished usability and functionality. Surprisingly enough, despite the modern outlook of graphical user interfaces, intuitive navigation and help files, most corporate organizations today still use these legacy applications.
On the contrary, today’s competitive business environment calls upon flexibility for an organization with a good close of forethought to be able to take a stand on today’s aggressive insurance landscape. The choice of technology needs to be reliable and scalable as well as easy to integrate, this has a direct impact upon how the insurance company can compete and become successful. Global Aero’s information system was built for an entirely different time in history and it therefore served one purpose and it fails to meet the criteria of pushing the company today to achieve set goals.
Today several insurance companies like Global aero have had running legacy systems and many system analysts have predicted that at best these systems will slow down the entire process of the company and at worst the system becomes a liability for the company (Why ERP Systems are Important - Why Use an ERP, 2016). Some shortcomings of the system at Global aero includes: rising staffing costs; limited growth as a result of limiting innovation; the applications are purely driven by data and therefore prohibit access to business content.
Executive summary
Global aerospace is one of the leading global premium providers of aviation risk management solutions and aircraft insurance. In the aviation and aerospace industries the company is considered as a world leader. The company’s many years of service enable it to develop customized insurance programs that are tailored across the need of their clients. The company has a reputation for customer service and serves as a trusted partner for a diversified number of aviation businesses as well as insurance producers.
The global ERD is projected to touch USD 1.7 trillion in the next four years. This will be an improvement from USD 1.4 trillion in 2013. Spending on corporate insurance sector is projected to hit 900 billion from 7000 billion in this period. The global aerospace ERD is forecast to grow from 24 billion in 2013 to 30 billion in 2020. In moving forward, addition of more features would bring on a new significance as more firms are focused on differentiation safety and green technology.
Global aerospace incudes three principal operating companies: Global Aerospace Underwriting Managers (Canada) Limited; Global Aerospace Underwriting Managers Limited; and Global Aerospace Inc. the company’s board of directors has six directors two executive and four non-executive and nominated by the shareholders.
Need for ERP implementation
Always, ERP implementation is a critical business decision as ERPs provide a number of benefits to companies as well as unpatrolled ability to compete in the business market. These systems are expensive and have a shelf life of a decade or a decade and a half and therefore for the concern of cost and productivity, it is necessary that company IT expert decide the right time to acquire one or overhaul a legacy system and modernize the system using a new system. Some recent reports show important considerations before making the move to buy one include: business needs; financial returns; and available resources.
Important in commissioning an ERP solution for the insurance company is saving money. By unifying the many fragmented systems in your organization one can save money that is lost in having and maintaining many subsystems. The unification bring about cost saving and improved quality business processes. Money is also saved in having to train your employees on different systems. At the end of it all time and money is saved from different trainings of different systems.
Improved collaboration. The nature of these systems may vary in design and functionality but one thing is sure across all of them, they enable you to share and edit data and have more improved security and access. The need to merge data across different systems is eliminated as data is centralized in the one system. This saves time and is much more efficient in contrast to the legacy systems (Spekman & Davis, 2004).
Improved productivity. One of the thing that an ERP introduces to the company is elimination of redundancy work. This injects more productivity and efficiency. The repetition of work manually is eliminated as reported in (CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING AN ERP IMPLEMENTATION, n.d. ). This will of course have a positive influence on your company’s productivity. Additionally, most ERPs will guarantee you happier customers, many organization leaders don’t think an internal system has much to do with customers but it actually does. The right ERP can be used to generate leads about customers and once potential individuals are converted to customers they can be followed up using the system making better and happier customers as a result of better communication.
Proposed models
For Global Aero it is necessary to understand that there is o one size fits al when deciding the kind of system that need to be implemented for it. Only after gathering requirements can one settle for the kind of system that is perfect. Most ERP providers however design generic systems that are highly customizable and flexible for any organization to try and make it fit to its needs. For this particular case I would recommend a core ERP solution instead of a CRM solution. This is because the solution is mostly used by insurance companies as it includes financials and it can generate personalized reports. A good example of an ERP that support integrated reporting is Oracle’s Business Suite according to (ERP Integration - Application Architecture, 2014). This would also be a good suit given the experience that Oracle have in designing these systems. Other companies have found out that this particular ERP has a positive and encouraging ROI from Oracle financials. In taking this option, several considerations should be taken into place and that is: skill level of users; processes that will need support; overall cost and flexibility.
ERP Architecture development and Implementation
When packaged, an ERP supports a variety of business functions. The work of the ERP is to primarily automate business processes so as to increase business efficiency and provide better visibility. A struggle faced by companies is integration of enterprise systems with other enterprise systems in meeting the growing business needs and demands. An ERP implementation spans some few years and it starts as a few functional modules and grows to a primary ERP system with countable standalone applications on the side. Enterprises therefore need a new way to implement systems that will assist them in integration of isolated applications while providing unified application architecture.
References
CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING AN ERP IMPLEMENTATION. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2016, from http://carl.sandiego.edu/gba573/critical_issues_affecting_an_erp.htm
ERP Integration - Application Architecture. (2014). Retrieved July 22, 2016, from https://www.mulesoft.com/resources/esb/erp-integration-application-architecture
Spekman, R. E., & Davis, E. W. (2004). Risky business: expanding the discussion on risk and the extended enterprise. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 34(5), 414-433.
Why ERP Systems are Important - Why Use an ERP. (2015). Retrieved July 22, 2016, from https://selecthub.com/enterprise-resource-planning/why-erp-systems-are-important/
