Working on an application used by 13,000 self-employed barristers in England and Wales
Executive Summary
Challenge: A need to innovate customer-facing solutions and to develop applications for their management services for transport and professional indemnity insurance mutuals.
Approach: We worked on various projects, seamlessly integrating our skills. Our technical expertise, particularly in UI/UX design and iOS development, greatly enhanced the final solutions.
Result: Our collaboration enabled the client to create innovative, client-oriented solutions. We improved user experience, efficiency and accessibility for Thomas Miller and their clients.
Services we used:
Table of Contents
About the client
Thomas Miller is an international provider of market-leading insurance services. Most of the businesses they own or manage are acknowledged leaders in their chosen markets.
From financially secure foundations with regulatory-friendly processes, they build solid, sustainable businesses that deliver the highest quality services and significant returns.
Thomas Miller’s principal activities include management services for transport and professional indemnity insurance mutuals, managing general agency, professional services including technical services, legal services, captive and claims management and investment management for institutions.
Business challenge
The Thomas Miller Group is a forward-thinking organisation that recognises the need to innovate as the market and client needs change.
Thomas Miller was looking for a dependable software development partner with enough flexibiliy and appropriately skilled developers to help the company deliver a number of improved customer-facing solutions.
Future Processing is a trustworthy and reliable partner for building high quality and affordable applications that are successfully delivered. Thanks to the cooperation we were able to deliver more projects and add value to our businesses.
Results of our partnership
- Application for barristers
Together we worked on a solution for BAR Mutual, a Thomas Miller managed insurance scheme that provides professional indemnity insurance for the 13,000 self-employed barristers in England and Wales.
Working in tandem with the Thomas Miller team, we provided the necessary and complementary skills for UI/UX and credit card payments and enabled the project to deliver a result to market in a far shorter timescale.
The application allows UK barristersto renew and pay on-line. We also enabled Thomas Miller’s clients to have uninterrupted use of the existing system while redevelopment was taking place.
- BLP Portal
Together we delivered redevelopments in a number of Group IT projects. One such was for Building LifePlans (BLP) a provider of comprehensive housing warranty and commercial property latent defects insurance since 1999. The launch of the BLP portal enabled Thomas Miller to obtain insurance quotes easily and quickly on-line.
We also undertook projects such as a BLP invoice reminder that tracks outstanding invoices and sends reminders for payment; a CRM service allowing faster data searches and extraction and an intranet site that helps in-house communication and knowledge sharing.
- iPandi application
Thomas Miller contracted Future Processing to be part of a project to build a native iPad/iOS App – iPandi – to give more efficient and quicker access to data for their clients. Up until that point, UK P&I and UK Defence Club members had to contact the relevant offices to glean this information. The priority was to give customers access to their own fleet data including both record statements and individual ship documentation instantly and on-line.
This project was another example of how well the two development teams successfully work together: the Thomas Miller team designed the database access and built the data integration using SOA. We developed the front end UI/UX design, application build and then carried out the test execution.
The resulting product was awarded runner up prize in the Insurance Day Award Technological Initiative of the Year competition.
The real value, from my perspective, was not that Future Processing solved the problem but that they contributed a vital input to the end solution we achieved together. Future Processing provided UI/UX and iOS expertise. These are skills we don’t have, or frankly even need, when we work with them.
I was particularly pleased with the off-line data management capabilities of the App that they delivered. These are a huge benefit to the user and, as an outcome, very much reflect the collaborative and synergistic nature of working with Future Processing.
Key success factors
The key to the success of any project is that the off-shore development team works to the specification and within the parameters defined by the client’s IT Management and personnel. However the ability to be flexible and, when relevant, contribute ideas for consideration from the offshore partner’s own technical knowledge and experience, can add a powerful dimension to the progress and ultimate quality of the project result.
The collaboration between the Thomas Miller Group and Future Processing offers one such example.
Thanks to the partnership with Future Processing, Thomas Miller was able to deliver more projects and add value to their businesses.
Technology used in the project
