InsuraCorp Case Study
InsuraCorp financial services companies existed as separate entities until, in 2005, its officers contemplated developing InsuraCorp into an enterprise system. The three primary business services at InsuraCorp, individual insurance, retirement services, and group insurance, had been operating autonomously. The idea was to cross-market across the three financial service divisions to create a company that could offer a synergistic financial product and services environment for their clients. When undertaking an enterprise project of this magnitude, InsuraCorp predicted there would be data governance issues. The predominant governance issues involved IT planning (strategy development), implementation (tactic), and the most critical, database viability. When attempting to merge the databases of their three primary financial businesses, several data integrity issues arose. From the beginning of the system merging initiative, InsuraCorp had decided that they would invest in purchased software to accomplish the task. This decision runs counter-intuitively to the plan for cross-marketing, sales, and financial management services InsuraCorp hoped to provide by the centralized database. Implementation of the plan was logistically difficult due to the personal nature of the data being transferred: addresses, common names, and birthdays that are prone to crosschecking problems within a data exchange. Knowing that some of the data was missing or incorrect, InsuraCorp’s project manager’s solution to the redundancy was to extract the data and move it to a “data warehouse” and “publish exception reports”. In other words, put the data in a closet and ignore the problem. Accountability and governance were not factors in the implementation of the system. Ultimately, the goal was to blend the companies to make sales and marketing easier, and supposedly better, for the client. What InsuraCorp attempted to do left their clients private financial information vulnerable with little
References: Brown, C. V., Khatri, V., & Lockwood, N. (2007). Case Study I-5 Data Governance at InsuraCorp. In C. V. Brown, J. A. Hoffer, & E. M. Wainright, Managing Information Technology (Vol. 7E, pp. 166-169). Pearson. Colin, R. (n.d.). Is data the CIO 's responsibility? Retrieved September 21, 2013, from Computer Weekly: http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Is-data-the-CIOs-responsibility Gow, B. (2006). Case Study: Data Governance & Compliance for Financial Services. Retrieved June 19, 2013, from Source Media Conferences: http://www.sourcemediaconferences.com/CDISP07/pdf/Gow_Brett.pdf Knowledge Integrity, Inc. (2003). Who Owns Data? . Retrieved September 21, 2013, from Knowledge Integrity Business Intelligence Solutions: http://www.knowledge- integrity.com/columns/dmr200303.htm University of Pennsylvania. (2012). Data Access Standards. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from University of Pennsylvania: http://www.upenn.edu/oacp/privacy/policiesguidance/data-access-standards.html