How IBM Process Mining drives new efficiencies at BoB-Cardif Life

Companies now recognize the importance of leveraging innovative technologies to drive digital transformation and achieve cost efficiencies. However, the lack of precise top-level planning and focus on technology without integration with business requirements has led many companies to make huge investments without achieving optimal results.

The road to digital transformation is full of challenges. How can organizations avoid the digital risk of ‘technology misuse’ and achieve efficient innovation where ‘technology drives production’? BoB-Cardif Life Insurance Co., Ltd (BoB-Cardif Life), an insurance company integrating technology into a new development environment, has partnered with IBM®. Introducing IBM Process Mining, an AI-based process mining product using the IBM Client Engineering methodology. This partnership establishes the benchmark for digital transformation in the insurance industry by driving innovation and achieving cost efficiencies through AI-driven business automation.

“Co-creation with IBM”

BoB-Cardif Life has established a five-year plan according to its strategic development needs, in line with the original guidelines of the State Administration of Financial Supervision of China on digital transformation. The plan aimed to address digital transformation alongside the 2023 Digital Deployment Plan. A Digital Transformation Office has been established to oversee the company’s digital transformation efforts. The goal of highlighting ‘Lean Process’ as a foundational initiative in the company’s 2023 plan is to improve its overall process management capabilities by establishing process-specific methodologies, systems and tools. The goal of this plan is to avoid unnecessary costs, avoid circumvention and create a solid foundation for continued digitalization.

BoB-Cardif Life’s Digital Transformation Office analyzed its current processes using an innovative approach from IBM Client Engineering. They identified a lack of end-to-end perspective and a need to strengthen their process management methods. To address the aforementioned challenges, the office looked for practical solutions to optimize and automate processes. The goal is to quickly identify and resolve process issues and promote continuous resolution of cross-departmental and cross-system collaboration issues. Optimize management mechanisms to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and mitigate risk.

Accordingly, BoB-Cardif Life has launched the “Super Automation” project through the long-term development of a series of process-related platforms, technologies and products. It aims to achieve, reorganize and optimize business process collaboration between departments and systems. The goal is to effectively reduce labor costs, improve operational efficiency, optimize management mechanisms, and mitigate business risks.

BoB-Cardif Life regards digitalization as a technological innovation and elevates it to the level of strategy and value with foresight and responsibility. Focusing on customer value, the company prioritizes long-term development and innovation. Decisions are made based on objective data to maintain the rationality of technological application and prevent misuse of digital technologies. Based on this premise and following a rigorous supplier selection process, BoB-Cardif Life chose IBM as its partner to explore digital innovation and transformation of its processes.

A BoB-Cardif Life official said, “It can be said that IBM and BoB-Cardif Life have the same ideas in the field of process development. In our initial discussions with IBM, we found that their offering for hyperautomated process solutions aimed at creating value for our customers closely aligned with ours. IBM provides a technology platform that meets our business needs and provides innovative methodologies to efficiently transform technology into business value. “This capability is exactly what we need to advance our digital transformation journey long-term.”

BoB-Cardif life process mining platform is the first of its kind in the Chinese insurance industry.

In 2023, BoB-Cardif Life’s Super Automation Project (Phase 1) built a process mining platform using IBM Process Mining. By introducing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in a pilot scenario, we quickly improved process efficiency and quality, cost-effectively consolidated system resources, and broke down data silos. The initial focus was to build on the results of the previous two projects, optimize three core processes – billing, underwriting and complex approval processes – and fully implement and improve the underlying process methodology.

Process mining is known as ‘corporate nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)’, which can quickly find the ‘root cause’ of corporate processes and identify effective ‘prescriptions’. IBM Process Mining can use data from enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and other business systems. This enables you to achieve comprehensive enterprise processes through artificial intelligence and data-driven insights while accurately identifying problems caused by inefficiencies. Additionally, IBM Process Mining can prioritize automation improvements based on problem severity and expected ROI, executing corrective actions or creating RPA bots to continuously improve processes. This technology enables companies to make faster, more informed process improvement decisions, which can reduce turnaround times by 70% and achieve ROI of up to 176%.

Currently, the BoB-Cardif Life Super Automation (Phase 1) project is progressing smoothly with the following achievements:

• Methodology: BoB-Cardif Life has established methods for assessing the current business state, optimizing processes and implementing digital technologies. The subsequent mode of operation is determined by applying and validating these methods for iterative and continuous process optimization, a critical element of the digital transformation journey.
• Business Application: BoB-Cardif Life enhanced transparency of its claims process for key stakeholders, providing visibility into the entire process and frequency for the first time. Through this process, the company identified work anomalies, a low rate of approvals being processed without investigation, excessive duplication of work, and an imbalanced deployment of staff to handle complex tasks. To address specific process breakpoints, the company proposed targeted digital technology and process management measures. We aim to focus all our investments on customer value, eliminate waste and significantly improve billing automation. The company also recognizes data issues and has introduced measures to ensure ongoing and effective data quality oversight.

Through this project, BoB-Cardif Life has identified targeted actions to optimize specific business processes. Along with using RPA support, implementing these measures also requires leveraging the capabilities of digital technologies, including AI-based knowledge repositories and AI-based claims case classification.

IBM believes that enterprise digital transformation is a long-term, iterative process that requires business values, methodologies, technology platforms and tools that align with your business strategy. IBM has deep experience and technical expertise in enterprise digital transformation focused on customer value. We deliver an agile and efficient approach through methodologies such as IBM Client Engineering and leading practical technology platforms and products. This allows customers to choose the technologies, platforms, and paths that meet their business needs, overcome obstacles, and improve the effectiveness of their digital transformation. “We are extremely honored and proud to help BoB-Cardif Life drive innovation, reduce costs, increase efficiency and set the benchmark for digital transformation in the insurance industry through AI-enabled business automation,” said the IBM project leader. “I do,” he said. .

Learn more about how IBM Process Mining can streamline operations, improve decision-making and drive digital transformation. Start your journey toward efficient AI-driven process optimization.

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