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Organisational context: Existing Multinational computer systems

' ... They were basically reliant on mainframe systems in the various countries that we operate and the variety PC systems that had been developed locally as well. It was a very fragmented situation, and so to go back to our ICI example, ... where there was a claim in the States, claim in the UK, claims in France, those claims would all go into the various systems that were being used in those countries so in the US it's a mainframe system, in the UK it's a mainframe system, in France it's a Unix system. The underwriter controlling the programme in London who wants to get a handle on the claims experience on that programme, it was just virtually impossible...I mean the only way it could be done was with a lot of effort ... from an underwriters perspective, it was a ridiculous situation, from an overall X management perspective it was impossible, to say which bits of Multinational, in terms of these risks that they're writing and various policy classes, which are doing well and which aren't doing so well and they couldn't really manage that side of it.

There was incredible kind of duplication of effort with everybody doing their own thing, information being keyed to systems abroad, and then coming back here and being re-keyed again and re-keyed again, it's a lot of wasteful labour intensive type of activity.

... clients like ICI as I've said have become very sophisticated and they want detailed breakdown of claims and generally the mainframe systems don't allow you to hold that detail because the mainframe systems that X-Group uses in the UK and the US were designed for volume business for household accounts and what's happened is that they've tried to shoe-horn multinational business into those systems. So we just ... weren't holding the information ... the clients wanted. There's obviously all the financial control issues as well'

X013 page 010.01 (tape 02..) Gordan Notes/Trans/Tape 30/09/93

Social influence: Organisation: Systems
Technical influence: IT environment: Existing systems


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