Tech migration helps reduce running cost

NEW DELHI:HCL Insurance BPO Services Limited (earlier Liberata Financial Services Limited) said it has achieved a 75 per cent reduction in the running costs of a major client’s core Life and Pensions application, CAPSIL. This was achieved using Micro Focus Server and Micro Focus Studio, claimed a press note.

The project saw HCL Insurance BPO Services migrate the application from a third party mainframe on to an in-house Windows platform, bringing the end-to-end delivery of its application under direct control, reducing batch processing by four times and improving online performance by up to 75 per cent.

Micro Focus is a provider of enterprise application management and modernization solutions.

The release further explained that in undertaking a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) agreement to run the Life and Pensions application of their client, HCL Insurance BPO Services inherited an older IT infrastructure. This included a third party mainframe to run the client’s Life and Pensions CAPSIL application.

With no control over the rising costs imposed by the third party and reliance on an external provider for meeting its contractual obligations, the mainframe no longer represented good value. Since BPO is a highly competitive business dependent on efficient IT, HCL Insurance BPO Services sought to move the application in-house.

The decision to move off the mainframe was the largest technology migration project HCL Insurance BPO Services had ever undertaken. Micro Focus was chosen to manage the project as its tailored solutions met stringent requirements. Micro Focus Server Enterprise Edition provided a robust, high-performance run-time system for the Windows platform. Micro Focus Studio Enterprise Edition gave the development team a powerful, graphical development environment. It enabled the conversion of core application code without any major changes to the operations and software application. It also greatly reduced risk to the business and eliminated the need for user re-training.

“We identified that having the business-critical Life and Pensions application hosted on a third party mainframe exposed us to a number of risks that could impact our ability to deliver the service to our client successfully,” said Philip Hogan, chief executive of HCL Insurance BPO Services

“By working with Micro Focus we were able to quickly implement an infrastructure transformation programme to migrate the CAPSIL application to a much more cost-effective Windows platform, bringing the end-to-end service within our control and minimizing the risk,” he added.

According to David Stephenson, UK country general manager, Micro Focus this cost reduction is a perfect example of the dramatic savings possible from an innovative modernization strategy.

“HCL Insurance BPO Services is a major player in Business Processing Outsourcing, and I am delighted Micro Focus is the chosen partner to deliver significant cost savings and impressive productivity improvements.” he added.