The Opportunity
The company, a leading US insurer, faced challenges with financial reporting due to fragmented systems and manual processes, hindering operations and investment decision making. Their vision was for a unified accounting system that covered most accounting workflows and processes. In the backend of the accounting system, a new cloud-native architecture to deploy scalable, elastic compute and storage to provide self-service for reporting to improve investment and operational decision making, reduce operational costs, and scalability to cover peak periods such end of quarter/year closures.
The Solution
The company embarked on a multi-year transformation, deploying the following new core systems integrated systems
New Target Operating Ecosystem
FO/IBOR – Public Markets
Blackrock Aladdin
IBOR – Private Markets
eFront, Wall Street Office
ABOR
SimCorp Dimension
Data Management
MarkIT EDM
Reporting/Cloud
AWS, Snowflake, PowerBI
ABOR Transformation
The accounting system replaced many legacy systems and processes, standardizing workflows for accounting processing and operations. Three accounting frameworks were included in the transformation, including USGAAP, USTAT, and USTAX.
Moody's Impairment Studio Integration
The target solution fully integrated Moody’s Impairment Studio for Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) reporting to the new accounting system.
Reporting Transformation
Complementing and integrated with the new ABOR, a new cloud-based Reporting architecture was implemented which utilized AWS and Snowflake for cloud infrastructure, and PowerBI for end-user reporting and visualization.
The Impact
The impact for this initiative accrued huge benefits to the organization. Operational spreadsheets and other end-user-computing processes and workflows were eliminated, savings operational costs and reducing costly errors. Accounting processes and workflows provided significant improvements, where closing month and quarter end and performing regulatory reporting were streamlined and reduced the time needed to close periods.
Beyond efficiency gains, the overhaul enhanced data analytics and reporting. Front office had additional reporting capabilities, with one report views on their entire portfolio and exposures. Most importantly, the firm strengthened stakeholder trust by implementing a scalable and elastic infrastructure, where the firm can respond timely to requests and accelerating launches for new service offerings, mandates, and products.
By unifying their accounting systems and processes, and implementing a modernized cloud and reporting infrastructure, the company achieved a future-ready ecosystem which is reduced costs, improved operations, and provided more transparency into making investment and operational decisions.
