Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said it will deploy an enhanced policy management solution for Phoenix Group, Europe’s largest life and pensions consolidator and a TCS client of 12 years.
The move will not only give more advanced features for Phoenix Group, but also increase the number of Phoenix policies managed using TCS’s BaNCS platform to 5.5 million. At the time of the first BaNCS deal with Phoenix in 2012, TCS had pegged the number of policies that would be migrated to its platform at 4 million.
“The introduction of an enhanced digital solution for Phoenix Life’s customers and their intermediaries will improve the end-to-end customer journey via increased self-service options and by providing a consolidated view of policies,” the Mumbai-based consulting and outsourcing firm said today.
With this, said TCS, its BaNCS platform handled more than 18 million policies in the UK. TCS was already the leader in UK’s life and pension administration market based on the number of policies administered on its platform.
Tony Kassimiotis, Group COO, Phoenix Group said the deal was an essential part of the company’s plan to emerge as Europe’s “leading life insurance consolidator”.
He said the partnership with Diligenta, TCS’ UK subsidiary subjected to local regulations, will enable Phoenix Group to “take advantage of TCS’ increased scale and the latest advancements in digital technology and as a result, improve customer outcomes”.
Suresh Muthuswami, President and Global Head of Banking and Financial Services Industry platforms at TCS, said his company is making significant investments in digital and data capabilities of its platform.
“These combined strengths will enable TCS to deliver tangible improvements to Phoenix Group’s business through the delivery of enhanced customer experience,” he added.
The deal highlights the transformation of companies like TCS, which emerged in the 1980s as suppliers of manpower to global companies to implement enterprise software from the likes of SAP and Oracle, to vendors of standalone ‘platforms’ and ‘solutions’ in the cloud computing era.
The emergence of advanced technologies such as cloud computing and big data has led to the emergence of Artificial Intelligence-powered platforms in place of discrete units of software to manage information at global corporations.