Use of the Benefits Management Methodology in an Insurance Company: Case Study

Introduction

The IS allows companies to follow daily changes in the organizational environment to make management decisions. However, decision making on the implementation of the IS reveals poor objectiveness and transparency, particularly failures in the implementation process (Gomes, Romão, & Caldeira, 2012).

Organizations require a rigorous assessment of the impacts of the IS implementation and the identification of new methodologies. The benefits management method allows for the assessment of benefits associated with the IS implementation. This is an alternative and complementary analysis to traditional management practices. This analysis intends to dynamically demonstrate the continuous process of benefits management, including the planning phase and monitoring of the implementation (Gomes et al., 2012).

This research applies the benefits management technique to Oracle Exalytics, an IS project in the insurance sector. It emphasizes value created in the insurance business in association with its investments. To promote this, the following research question was asked: How can we measure the Oracle Exalytics project’s benefit to the insurance company?

The research project also intended to show the versatility of the Cranfield School of Management technique, which allows for a continuous evaluation of associated benefits, paths, and dependencies between network elements using the construction of a benefit dependency network (BDN). This includes the IS/IT enablers, enabling changes, business changes, business benefits, investment objectives, and business drivers. This methodology was chosen because its approach clearly identifies expected benefits and offers a detailed plan for realizing these benefits (Fernandes, 2014).

The study was conducted through an exploratory case study, which used public information and an interview with the project manager. The interview was structured using seven key issues defined in the model. Due to project confidentiality at the time of the research, the interview cannot be presented.

This article is divided into five sections. After the introductory section, section two presents a general view of the current state of the IS area and benefits management techniques. Section three discusses the methodology applied during the research. Section four summarizes the project and presents a brief discussion of BDN. Finally, the conclusion reviews limitations and suggestions for future work.