MGMT Insurance Ltd. is an insurance company that accepts payments on various insurance policies from businesses across the island. These businesses deduct payments from employees’ salaries and pay the insurance company a lump sum each month. This total amount deducted is shown on each employee’s pay slip

Deductions are due at the end of each month. A business submits one payment for its employees to the insurance company via online payment though the bank.

However, if payments were received after 11 am, the bank does not process them until the next business day. At the beginning of each month an administrative assistant at MGMT Insurance Ltd. downloads the deductions from the bank for each business and passes the file on to another employee in the department to allocate payments to the various policies. These payments are linked to the client’s unique number along with his/her relevant policy numbers and amounts due. However, recently there have been some complaints that payments for some policies were not being allocated correctly. Additionally, at least one customer Beth Nelsen, experienced a problem with insufficient deductions to cover her monthly premiums.

As a new manager with the company, you wish to check the systems and processes to ensure that they are up-to-date and report your findings and possible recommendations at the upcoming meeting.

NOTES A. You have been placed in a group of 5 or 6 group-mates. You are required to share with and critique information in the group.

B. This is an exercise where you get to experience and demonstrate several concepts in gathering, analysing and using information for management reporting.

C. You are now a manager in one of the departments of the company. Each of you will select: • • ONE Management Level that you will represent (operational, management/tactical or strategic). • • ONE department from the following list (Claims, Human Resources, Information Technology, Customer Service, Accounting, Marketing, Underwriting).

Once you have chosen a persona, all contributions MUST be delivered from the perspective of that persona.

REQUIRED

Management Reporting

You need to analyse the above business processes and discuss what could possibly cause the troubles that the company is currently experiencing.

You are attending a number of routine meetings that are conducted online. You are to post questions and response with information related to your analysis. Posts can be conversational among managers asking and responding to questions. There is no need for groups to meet outside of the course for this discussion, as it is expected that the meetings will proceed in a manner similar to messaging on a corporate collaboration website. The meetings are organized as five (5) individual forums each to discuss a different part of the requirements.

Forum 1: Introduce yourself Identifying your Management Level and your Functional Area

For your FIRST discussion state your management level and department you will represent.

Answer: Operational Manager, Customer Service

Forum 2: Discuss the allocation issue

1. From the perspective of your department and management level (operations manager – Customer Service), discuss the problem of errors in the allocation of deductions to policy premiums.

a. Suggest ONE contributing factor

b. Request information from TWO other departments that could assist in your investigation. Please specify the type of report you are requesting (types of output)

Forum 3: Discuss Beth's Issue

2. From the perspective of your department and management level (operations manager – Customer Service), discuss the impact that Beth’s issue could have on the department and the company as a whole.

a. Suggest ONE reason why the deduction could have been too small

Forum 4: Create the process diagram

3. Assuming that a client (not Beth!) increases their insurance coverage. Design and draw a “Policy Change Request” process diagram that will ensure the correct deductions are made the month following the increase. The diagram should show the bands, process flows and cross functional interactions required.

Forum 5: Summarise and make Recommendations

4. Summarise the information shared thus far, and discuss two findings about your analysis from your management level (operations manager – Customer Service) that can be used to focus on the issues. Make TWO recommendations to prevent both the misallocation of deduction and the issue of too small a deduction.