Customer Solution Case Study
/ Insurance Broker Achieves FSA Compliance, Enhances Competitive Advantage in Six Weeks
Overview
Country or Region:United Kingdom
Industry:Financial services
Customer Profile
Oxygen was formed in 2004 by a group of individuals who believe in improving customer service and the need to modernise the processing infrastructure in the London insurance market.
Business Situation
Oxygen required a compliance solution that would let it ensure complete compliance with a new FSA rulebook. The solution had to be easily manageable and guarantee all employees adhered to the structures in place.
Solution
Oxygen implemented Wildnet’s Wild Compliance Solution, highly customisable and built around the Microsoft® Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley.
Benefits
Compliance easily managed from a central location.
New functionality reduces resource expenditure by 50 per cent.
Rapid adoption, thanks to familiarity of Microsoft interface.
Flexibility of SharePoint Services powers new company Intranet.
Seamless integration lowers costs and accelerates implementation time by months. / “The Wild Compliance solution, based on Windows SharePoint Services, lets us manage compliance tasks internally, saving time, money, and reduces reliance on others.”
John Benjamin, Chief Operating Officer, Oxygen
Oxygen is a new player in London’s insurance market. Formed in 2004, the company aimed to take advantage of new business dynamics and sweeping new regulatory changes imposed by the recently appointed Financial Services Authority (FSA). It sought a compliance solution that could be seamlessly integrated with its existing Microsoft®architecture, and scalable enough to easily incorporate new additions to the FSA’s rulebook. Oxygen implemented insurance solutions specialist Wildnet’s Wild Compliance Solution, a highly customisable product that is built around the Microsoft® Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley. With Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services, also a key component of the solution, Oxygen has a scalable solution that easily fits with its existing environment, and provides automated processes to ensure that compliance procedures are managed and followed by employees.
Situation
Insurance intermediary Oxygen was formed in 2004 with the goal of improving customer service and modernising the processing infrastructure of the London insurance market. The company identified a raft of changes currently manifesting themselves across the market and saw a clear opportunity for a focused new firm to capitalise on this changing landscape.
A part of this change was the appointment of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as the central regulatory body for the London insurance market. Prior to the FSA’s involvement, business was often conducted on an informal, ‘gentleman’s agreement’ basis, whereby firms or senior individuals would verbally agree to contracts, trusting the integrity of the counterparty to deliver on their responsibilities. As honorable as this system may have been, it represented a rather antiquated method of doing business in the 21st century.
The death knell for this informal means of conducting affairs came in February 2005, when the regulatory might of the FSA was brought to bear on the market. Firms were suddenly obliged to guarantee complete audit trails for their deals, establish standardised contracts, and ensure their daily actions fell into line with the FSA’s stipulations. Failure to do so could result in a hefty fine, expensive back-auditing of data or, in the worst case scenario, a suspension of business.
As John Benjamin, Chief Operating Officer, Oxygen, says: “The new regulations impact every area of our business, from handling money, to audit trails, to how we actually sell insurance.”
It was amid this background of reform that Oxygen was conceived. Its founders saw an opportunity to create a new organisation unburdened with the antiquated practices of old, one that would fit perfectly in the new environment the FSA was trying to create. At the heart of Oxygen’s fresh approach lay the belief that:
There was an urgent need for improvement in process efficiency, particularly the issue of contract certainty;
There existed a need for greater transparency of commissions;
Greater clarity was needed of what ancillary services were provided to whom, and paid for by whom.
However, to ensure group-wide compliance with the new regulatory environment, Oxygen needed an automated framework in which it could maintain complete audit trails, centralise its work processes, provide company-wide visibility, and ensure its practices always fell into line with FSA requirements.
Solution
Oxygen began a detailed study of systems that could meet its business management demands and found that only one company could offer a solution that really suited its requirements.
Benjamin says: “After careful consideration, we eventually turned to Wildnet, a dedicated insurance solution provider with considerable experience and success.” At the heart of Wildnet’s Wild Compliance Solution lies the Microsoft® Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley, which allowed Wildnet to create a user environment using Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services, and Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2003 information-gathering program.
The easily customisable nature of the Microsoft solutions allowed Wildnet to create a central repository where Oxygen’s compliance manager could update the company’s practices in line with current FSA regulations.
Caroline Hunt, Senior Project Manager at Wildnet, says: “Our solution provides a pre-populated environment with all the FSA regulations required for London brokers. Thanks to the Microsoft tools it is based upon, we have a solution than can easily be tailored for any individual firm’s requirements.”
As a start-up concern, Oxygen needed a solution that would be implemented rapidly, while also providing a familiar interface to users. Thanks to the Microsoft technology that constitutes the core of Wild Compliance, these demands were easily met.
“The Wildnet solution was particularly easy to integrate with our existing solution stack,” says Benjamin. “It is built on low-risk Microsoft software and is very easy for users to administer and extend with minimal reliance on IT skills.”
In fact, the project took just six weeks to complete, a timescale aided greatly by the flexibility of the Microsoft components. “Without the Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley, we would have had to write vast amounts of code,” says Caroline Hunt. “This would have been expensive for our clients and pushed the project seriously over schedule.”
Wild Compliance provides Oxygen with a complete, automated solution to ensure that compliance procedures are established and, more importantly, followed by all employees.
Benefits
New Solution Guarantees Ongoing Compliance
The most important and far-reaching benefit of Microsoft-based Wild Compliance solution is the peace of mind it brings to Oxygen. For a small company looking to rapidly establish itself in a competitive market, the prospect of an FSA fine could be disastrous. Even worse, the regulator has the option of suspending trading. However, the new system, based on Windows SharePoint Services, means the group can ensure that best-practice procedures are established, regularly updated, and followed by every employee.
SharePoint Functionality Halves Resource Expenditure
For a new company in particular, making the most of employees’ time and resources is critical. According to Benjamin, the new compliance architecture saves the company at least 50 per cent manpower time: “We are able to devote our time and resources to ensuring our customers get the best possible support, rather than having to divert our attentions to less value-added tasks.”
Ease of Customisation Saves Time and Money
The Wild Compliance solution is ideally calibrated for Oxygen’s needs. However, as the company grows it will undoubtedly need to make changes to its work processes, especially those governing regulatory issues. The FSA’s involvement in the London market is still relatively recent and thus it needs to amend and update its regulations on a monthly basis. The ease with which the Microsoft-based solution allows users to do so was of great importance for Oxygen. “We needed to be able to alter the parameters with which we worked in securely, but also without having to resort to hiring third-party programmers,” says Benjamin. “Doing so would have meant further outlay which we wanted to avoid. The Wild Compliance solution, based on Windows SharePoint Services, lets us manage this task internally, saving time, money, and reducing reliance on others.”
Familiarity of Microsoft Products Eliminates Training Costs
“Because it is based on Microsoft technology and the user interface of the new solution is so familiar, users can adapt to it very quickly with almost no training necessary,” says Benjamin. “We already had Windows SharePoint Services installed within our operation, which meant it integrated seamlessly with our existing infrastructure, saving time and cost.”
Windows SharePoint Services Functionality Powers Company Intranet
So convenient has Windows SharePoint Services proved to Oxygen, that the company has now used the solution to roll out a company-wide intranet, helping all employees save valuable time in locating resources and improving communication. The fact that Windows SharePoint Services is so accessible means employees don’t require training and can quickly begin to enjoy the benefits of the intranet.
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