Over the the holiday break I chatted with Stacie Kenney, a Business Process Analyst with West Bend Mutual Insurance. West Bend is located in Wisconsin and has been around since 1894. They offer property/casualty insurance for businesses, homes, autos, and personal property through independent agencies in six states.
Stacie and I discussed how she worked over the last year to help create a small commercial offering which, before BPM and process mapping, had not been practical to offer.
We also discussed the role that process mapping played in the recent IT department re-org, helping to streamline processes and breakdown silos.
West Bend Business Analyst and Blueprinter, Stacie Kenney
Take a listen:
>> My talk with Stacie (7:17): Listen (mp3) Listen (ogg)
Some of the Topics we tackle:
- West Bend’s “Smart Business” offering and how it leverages new technologies like services, content generation tool and Teamworks.
- Given that the “Smart Business” premiums were small, the goal was to de-complicate the process so that the agencies could set up the policy with very little time up front.
- Before Blueprint, the BA’s leveraged Visio for flows along with a “mammoth” spec doc in Word. The biggest issue with this approach was keeping the content in sync.
- West Bend was drawn to Blueprint by its collaboration and document generation capabilities.
- The “Road To Excellence” and the IT re-org, breaking down silos and centralizing the BA’s.
- Using process mapping to document the flow of work coming into the BA group from the business, categorize it and then deliver it back on a monthly basis.
Pau for now…
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