Study Questions
- Should Northern Insurance have invested in TUFS?
Northern Insurance should have invested in the TUFS because of the various benefits the company would have enjoyed if the implementation would have been successful. Therefore, the investment in the TUFS would have been justified by the transformations the company’s underwriting would have undergone (Herter, 1995).
- What went wrong with the TUFS investment and what can be done to prevent these problems in the future?
The case reveals that the business did not participate fully in the development and implementation of TUFS at the company. The success of a project especially an enormous project such as TUFS implementation at Northern Insurance should have seen close collaboration between business and the technical teams. The business should have taken part in the development of the requirements of the system while it would have also been involved in the acceptance stage. The business would have developed the requirements that would have been converted into technical documents that would have become the requirements of the system. The business would have also been in a position to answer most of the questions that the technical team would have wanted (Rockart & Morton, 1984).
- What does Northern Insurance need to do to realize the benefits that were projected for TUFS?
There are several challenges in the way TUFS was implemented whose solution can be found over a period. However, the business cannot realize the benefits without having used the system because the system would not produce the benefits by itself. The company will realize the benefits by using the system fully. Although the future systems of the company will not be free from problems fully, they will have learned how to reduce the errors thereby making the system successful. The company should continue having the system in the underwriting process whose eventual outcomes might be the fixation of the majority of the problems. The company will only realize the benefits of the system with migration from traditional legacy system to TUFS. Although TUFS may not reach the level of capability the company may desire, for now, it will reach finally. The technical team can also identify most of the problems in the development cycle to enable the full realization of the benefits by the company (Courvisanos, 2000).
- How can Northern Insurance measure these benefits?
Northern Insurance would have measured the benefits of the system by using the system for its purpose. The company developed and implemented TUFS but failed to use the system. The process of underwriting was still using the legacy system for their daily activities. The problems were caused by the business failing to participate fully in the project. The benefits the implementation of TUFS would have provided would have been measured if the there would have been full cooperation between the business part of the company and the technical teams that were developing and implementing the system. The company would have also evaluated the usability of the system in that navigation through the system should be easy. Others are how much it would have motivated the employees at the company and how much costs it would have saved the company in operations and administrations. The benefits would also have been measured by how much the system would have automated the process of underwriting (Paul, 2007).
References
Courvisanos, J. (2000). IT Investment Strategy for Development: an ‘Instrumental Analysis’ Based on the Tasmanian and New Brunswick Information Technology Strategies. Prometheus, 18 (1), 75-91.
Herter, T. M. (1995). Don’t take shortcuts in underwriting process. Bests Review Life Health Insurance Edition, 96 (8), 58-59.
Paul, T. (2007). A Process-Oriented Perspective on the Alignment of Information Technology and Business Strategy. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24 (3), 227-268.
Rockart, J. F., & Morton, M. S. (1984). Implications of Changes in Information Technology for Corporate Strategy. Interfaces, 14 (1), 84-95.
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