The Account Leadership Program

Introduction
The account manager role at Mphasis is a sought after assignment as it allows for the utilization of
both people and project management skills while actively driving business development and client
engagement. It requires a passion for technology, a flare for relationship building and a strong desire
to be a trusted partner to the client.

Purpose
This case study is designed to offer candidates a glimpse into an engagement an account manager can
expect to manage. It shares relevant details for decision making and provides insight into some facets
of the role that the account manager will need to plan and action around.

This case is fictional and any resemblance to actual situations is purely coincidental.

Directions
Please go through the case in detail and formulate a response to the questions posed at the end of
the document. No further information or Q&A will be provided to assist in any gaps that may exist.
You may however use any external and freely available resources to assist your research.

During the interview process, you will be required to

- share your understanding of the situation
- outline your proposed way forward
- answer questions by the interviewer(s) on the plan proposed

You may make reasonable assumptions to arrive at your responses. Please choose any method you
find fit to convey your ideas, strategy, and response. However, limit your response to what can be
shared in 10 minutes.

This is meant to be an independent analysis by each applicant to the ALP and should not be treated as
a group project. Any information found to suggest that responses received were a joint effort of any
kind will result in disqualification from the interview process for all those found to be involved.

This document is the property of Mphasis. It is for internal purposes only and must not be circulated without written consent from
Mphasis. Those found in possession of this document without such consent may be held liable for any and all damages that may be
1
incurred by Mphasis.
About the client
Headquartered in London, Ben-Sure is one of the world’s leading providers of insurance, reinsurance
and employee benefits related advice, brokerage and associated services. Incorporated in the 1970s,
Ben-Sure went through a series of mergers and acquisitions across product lines however their
mainstay remains insurance broking.

Ben-Sure has a geographic presence across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Australia-New Zealand, and North
America with UK constituting approximately 65% of its global revenues. Their current IT budget is
greater than 10% of revenue and the CIO is looking increase savings via optimizing IT. The CEO’s vision
as highlighted in their annual report is, “Be the first Insurance Broking firm to have a global platform
across all countries, driving consistency, excellence and efficiency”

The Market Scenario

For far too long the Insurance industry has been cautious to experiment with digital innovation. The
success of FinTech in last decade has sent an encouraging signal and pundits predict the next wave of
digital revolution to be InsurTech. Unlike the traditional software development model, InsurTech will
need to drive innovation via consumer interfaces.

The start-up ecosystem has picked up on this and is rapidly churning out competition to incumbents.
Traditional customer acquisition and servicing methods are being challenged by faster, smarter and
more effective approaches. The customer segment has also shifted greatly to include more millennials
and technology friendly audiences and traditional players have been slow to adapt and change to
address this new market segment.

The low interest environment has added to the woes of insurance companies. To stay competitive, all
the major insurers have announced massive cost cutting programs. For example, in Germany, the
administrative costs have fallen by 50% in last decade.

The Current IT Model

Ben-Sure offers its broking services via an IT platform specific to each of the four regions. Their
platform for the UK region is a heavily customized solution supported by their in-house IT team. This
platform has exhaustive functionalities and can support almost all the requirements of their broking
business in Europe. Unsurprisingly, this platform is the benchmark for Ben-Sure to compare its other
three broking platforms across globe. The other regions have broking solutions running on their native
platforms. There is no single global network to share data across systems – connectivity exists in
pieces. They have multiple data centers for different regions.

Ben-Sure is now looking to offer its customers an identical experience across the globe. The global
platform should comply with the regulatory laws of each region, which vary widely, as well as support
multilingual requirements. They also want to derive business value from analytical insights that could
be generated due to data unification.

This document is the property of Mphasis. It is for internal purposes only and must not be circulated without written consent from
Mphasis. Those found in possession of this document without such consent may be held liable for any and all damages that may be
2
incurred by Mphasis.
Your Position
You are an employee of one of the leading Indian IT services pure play companies in the region. You
were recently assigned to be the Account Manager for Ben-Sure and will look after both the
Applications and ITO side of the business for Ben-Sure. You are the 3rd account manager in as many
years that has been assigned to Ben-Sure. The last two were asked to leave as they were unable to
manage client expectations and delivery SLAs.

You were recently invited to attend a workshop conducted by Ben-Sure for all the IT service providers
that currently support its operations. The objective was to understand their flagship and proprietary
platform. Based on that interaction, you are expected to create a pitch that will address Ben-Sure’s
requirements.

Additional Information
The current sales manager for Ben-Sure, who is your counterpart for this account has shared the
following intel with you:

1. Legacy infrastructure: Most of the hardware infrastructure is working on legacy hardware leading
to constant failures at a rate of almost 1 every fortnight. This has been causing constant service break
downs. While you are not responsible for the hardware support, the constant failures are keeping
your team overly occupied in ensuring that the applications go live and stay alive when hardware is
refreshed.

2. Legacy applications: Most the core insurance applications are proprietary and have not been
upgraded in many years. Given that they are all customized, finding talent that has a ready awareness
and ability to service these applications and resolve issues is extremely difficult. There is an issue to
recruit technical talent into the account also as people view this as a downward movement. They
want to work in newer technologies such as cloud and analytics.

3. Slow Transformation: Legacy infrastructure and support has made it hard to quickly transform
services or introduce new services. Cost savings that should have in-turn fuelled the transformation
have not been realized leading to a slow transformation when compared to the progress being made
by competitors

4. Scattered teams: Your team is not collocated with the infrastructure and the business process
teams. There is always a loss of information during transit. Chinese walls between teams leading to
poor communication & perceptions reduce productivity. Support thus is concentrated around keeping
the lights on

5. Competition foray into next generation technologies: The Big Four Competitors have been
constantly demonstrating their capabilities on the next generation technologies (IoT, Blockchain,
Predictive Analytics, Automation, etc.,) to the Insurance Company. They have placed themselves well
in FY17 by successfully completing pilots and also proposing a next generation strategy.

This document is the property of Mphasis. It is for internal purposes only and must not be circulated without written consent from
Mphasis. Those found in possession of this document without such consent may be held liable for any and all damages that may be
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incurred by Mphasis.
Your Assignment
Together with the sales manager for the account, prepare a pitch that will address the following:
- Deliver a consistent, benchmarked and un-interrupted experience to customers across the
globe
- Generate short term wins and long-term value wrt savings, processes, analytics and reporting
- Be seen as best-in-class technology, customer friendly and able to adapt to changes in future
technology
- Share the implementation roadmap with effort and pricing estimates
- Address both build and buy options in your pitch

This document is the property of Mphasis. It is for internal purposes only and must not be circulated without written consent from
Mphasis. Those found in possession of this document without such consent may be held liable for any and all damages that may be
4
incurred by Mphasis.