The words "enterprise integration" often strike fear in the hearts of
business and IT managers alike. Any project that involves the whole enterprise
is bound to seem overwhelming. Cost overruns, lengthy delays, and implementations
lasting months-or even years-have been the experience of many companies who have
tried to overhaul their operations. But integration doesn't have to mean thinking
big. In fact, the results will often be better if you start small.
A recent report from analyst firm Celent argued that even small integration
projects, involving a dozen services or less, can have significant business
value. This particular report focused on the insurance industry, but given the
huge complexity and advanced age of most insurance IT systems, the report's
findings could apply equally to almost any business.
Celent's research found that large insurers have already realized efficiencies
from 10% to 49% over their pre-implementation practices. This is indeed a significant
gain for less than a dozen services, and dramatically illustrates the benefits
an organization can realize from small integration projects. The report's primary
author, Matthew Josefowicz, says that the hype surrounding a complete process-driven
architecture is distracting attention from the short-term value of these limited
deployments. He argues that deploying even a few reusable services can have
an important impact on extending already stretched IT resources.
The companies surveyed were asked to rank the value of integration projects
in terms of the benefits realized by various areas of the business. The area
that reaped the greatest value was, "Taking in new business by linking
together systems internally." Insurers ranked services in this area as
having "amazing, game-changing value." Interestingly, New Business
Intake is precisely an area that Whitehill is focused on improving in the legal
industry as well.
New Business Intake is a complicated process, for both insurance companies
and law firms. In the legal market, new business typically needs to be approved
by a committee. This is because new business involves something called "conflict
searches." Whenever a law firm wants to take on a new matter, it must run
searches on the parties involved, to see if the firm has any existing relationships
with the prospective client or the opposing parties. This process involves searching
a firm's many systems (document management, records management, time & billing,
etc.) and has traditionally been done manually. Potential conflicts identified
through searches often require review by the attorneys involved with the parties,
leading to complex and potentially slow interactions that can hold up engagement.
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