Implementation to meet the growing market demand for electronic trading, improve processes and reduce costs

London, 2 July, 2009 Open Text Corporation, a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), today announced that Canopius has selected the Open Text ECM Suite to improve processes, reduce filing costs and more importantly support the implementation of electronic trading.

Realising the ever-increasing market demand for electronic trading, Canopius, an international insurance and reinsurance group that operates at Lloyd's and through its overseas operations in Bermuda, Singapore, Ireland and Australia, understands the need for a document management and workflow system that would enable the organisation to exchange information electronically with brokers and third parties around the world. 

Linda Stannard, Head of IT and Business Change at Canopius commented: “Currently, underwriting processes are paper based with 'face to face'   meetings held, even to manage administrative tasks. However, with technical advances in communications, the London Market has commenced a market improvements initiative to reduce administrative overheads and improve servicing times.  Electronic messages and electronic documents are key elements of this improvement programme, and participants in this market are tasked with adopting these new electronic solutions.  At Canopius we are keen to support these improvement initiatives, in readiness to trade with our business partners on an electronic basis.”

Following a rigorous evaluation process Canopius chose the Open Text ECM Suite, particularly for the Business Process Management (BPM) and Document Management (DM) capabilities. One of the key factors in its decision-making was that Open Text could offer an integrated document management and business process management solution, reducing its concerns on system integration.

Stannard continued: “We are a growing organisation and in support of this growth, we required a vendor that would be able to support both our current needs and those going forward. Open Text matched this requirement and provides us with a modern, scalable BPM and DM solution.” 

“In 2007 we moved into the Lloyd's building and space for filing became an important consideration. When researching Open Text we realised that its DM system could assist in our filing management, and significantly improve our document retrieval capability.”

“Furthermore we felt Open Text’s BPM and DM products could offer us long-term benefits such as improved visibility of 'work in progress', reduction in the effort needed for administrative tasks in the underwriting and claims areas, and general process improvements,” stated Stannard. 

One of Canopius’ main challenges was the timescale it set to get its document management and workflow systems implemented. It had already started work on a series of process models defining improved business functions, and needed a compatible workflow system that it could support these processes with minimal IT development effort. Open Text’s solution offered this capability, which sped up the workflow development process enabling Canopius to meet implementation schedules.

Canopius signed the agreement at the end of March 2008 and has since rolled out the DM and initial core workflows to all underwriting teams. In 2009 DM is being implemented into Claims, Service Company and other key business operations.

Stannard concluded: “We have received full support from Open Text for this implementation, the quality of resource provided has been excellent, and we look forward to developing our relationship further with Open Text in the future.”   

Nick Barrow, UK Sales Director, Open Text commented: “We have been working very hard to build a portfolio of partners and customers within the insurance space and are really excited to be working with such an established organisation. This implementation was truly unique for us, as it was the first time we’d integrated with our partner Change CSM's Stratman solution, as well as integrating both of our BPM and DM products. Even though we are still in the early stages of the full project rollout, we feel that it has been a success and hope to continue to deliver the high level of service and standards already set.”