Emtech Group Podcast

00:00:01 Gary Tyreman
Tony, it’s good to see you again. Well, let’s talk to you again. Talk to you. I guess I should say, can’t really see you now.
00:00:03
It is catching up.
00:00:09 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, I just, I like the regular check-ins and enjoy the dialogues we should.
00:00:17 Tony Saineghi
Record more of.
00:00:18 Tony Saineghi
Our conversations, I think they’re interesting. How about you?
00:00:22 Gary Tyreman
Well, it depends what time of day it is right to get more interesting as the day goes on. But so, I wanted to take it slightly different conversation today. I wanted to talk a little bit about.
00:00:27 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, there you go.
00:00:36 Gary Tyreman
The digitization process, right and where that leads because?
00:00:43 Gary Tyreman
I’m new to the industry. You’re an old an old timer, if I may use the word old timer as opposed to been around for a while. So, when did that process really kick into in earnest? And then let’s talk about some of the issues that can come out of the going down the process or following the process.
00:00:49
Fair enough.
00:01:05 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, I mean I think digitization, the Internet certainly made that a lot easier for folks. I think as folk’s general public became more acclimated to purchasing online, you know we were very reserved and our adoption rates.
00:01:26 Tony Saineghi
I would say, you know we we’re comfortable with buying books and then.
00:01:30 Tony Saineghi
And you know, you got to the early 2000s and people became quite comfortable with purchasing cars online. So, there was a big push inside of financial services, you know, kind of the insurance and retirement spaces to take on the mindset of, well, if folks are comfortable with.
00:01:52 Tony Saineghi
You know, buying electronics and buying cars online, you know, we should be able to provide a service level that is commensurate with everyday consumer goods. And so, you’ve seen the digitization process, boom, you’ve seen scale and growth.
00:02:11 Tony Saineghi
And adoption run right along with it.
00:02:15 Tony Saineghi
And you know, you know.
00:02:18 Tony Saineghi
Don’t really see a lot of paper apps out there. You know, maybe if folks are or in an agent’s office, but you know, COVID certainly struck that out as well. A lot of virtual visits, a lot of just online entry is just where we’re at as a normal course of business.
00:02:37 Gary Tyreman
Yeah, that certainly that period certainly accelerated uptake and change in in business process. I mean it by virtue it had to, but.
00:02:48 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, that’s right.
00:02:49 Gary Tyreman
So essentially the modernization.
00:02:53 Gary Tyreman
Of the core systems it is that the behind the scenes look at what people are trying to accomplish or is digitization.
00:03:01 Gary Tyreman
That set of processes like or they.
00:03:05 Gary Tyreman
Combine their conjoined.
00:03:08 Tony Saineghi
Yeah. So modernization of core systems is a whole other separate evolution, right? I think people carriers over time have begun to slowly whittle away at some of the peripheral systems that needed to be built and streamline that. But you still have a lot of core.
00:03:30 Tony Saineghi
Systems in place that.
00:03:33 Tony Saineghi
Are, you know quite cost effective to manage and maintain because?
00:03:39 Tony Saineghi
The risk reward of swapping out, you know, big calculators and millions of lines of old code, just the cost benefit isn’t there. So you’ve got you’ve got more streamlined systems to communicate with your old legacy system.
00:03:58 Tony Saineghi
Thems. There’re certainly efforts to modernize them. You know, I and hats off to those who do, because it is a challenging undertaking and ultimately it must happen across the board someday, but that’s an entirely different conversation altogether.
00:04:18
Well, yeah, we’ll.
00:04:19 Tony Saineghi
Do one of those at night over some over some beers and maybe record it, but that’s quite an undertaking, but going back to, I guess to answer your question it, it certainly is a separate endeavor to digitize and Dr. kind of.
00:04:34 Tony Saineghi
The core client facing parts of the business. You know, I’d say those are quite separated now thanks to technology and componentization and containerization for that matter.
00:04:49 Gary Tyreman
But they both prove propose.
00:04:53 Gary Tyreman
Or impose I guess is a more dramatic way of saying potential problems, right? Because if I’m.
00:05:01 Gary Tyreman
Lane technology over older systems with API’s in and out of the systems, or replacing the beloved Cobalt, which I don’t know if I told you that I study computer science at university and out of all the classes, cobalt is my best because I’m.
00:05:20 Gary Tyreman
Very grammatic, so I can put a period thing on.
00:05:23 Gary Tyreman
Every line so.
00:05:24 Gary Tyreman
You know. Uh, but.
00:05:26 Gary Tyreman
But in all seriousness.
00:05:28 Gary Tyreman
Regardless of which way I’m or which path I’m on, right. Digitization or modernization, the risk to the business, right, risk of mistakes or defects, if I use the industry word, right, bad things is present.
00:05:46 Tony Saineghi
Yeah. So I think I could build off of what?
00:05:50 Tony Saineghi
You’re the connection you’re making, so if you’re, if you’re talking about core modernization, let’s talk about kind of the integration piece right between the digitization, upfront new business modules and getting data to my core system for a calculation.
00:06:11 Tony Saineghi
Or getting my data to a data source, be it a data lake or.
00:06:17 Tony Saineghi
You know, however, we organize our data.
00:06:20 Tony Saineghi
Today you may have to transform that data or split it out or map it so that your legacy systems can adjust it and create proper calculations. When you undergo that sort of data orchestration and you know, fancy footwork, so to speak.
00:06:42 Tony Saineghi
That creates the greatest risk, right? Carriers do a lot of gymnastics to keep systems changes inside those core systems to a bare, bare minimum, and so that means there is.
00:06:57 Tony Saineghi
A lot of you know, peripheral calculations and transformations that are happening outside of it, and now you’re talking, you know, the world of death by 1000 cuts potentially because you can have, you know, specifically to financial results. You may have something that’s off.
00:07:16 Tony Saineghi
You know, a few bucks a day and it can go on for a year or you’ve got dividends applied across a group.
00:07:24 Tony Saineghi
That come in from a fund and dividend calculation you know is in allocating them correctly and you don’t catch it for you know, a couple of years and you know this is where quality tools really come into play.
00:07:44 Tony Saineghi
No, I was going to say the best way to kinda counteract.
00:07:49 Tony Saineghi
That that, that defect leakage right would be to, you know, go into your risk base.
00:07:57 Tony Saineghi
Automated test suite, right? And as you identify changes that you’re making to code, understanding your impacts not just from a coverage test coverage perspective on what you’re able to.
00:08:12 Tony Saineghi
Certify, but also in your development inside of.
00:08:16 Tony Saineghi
Your code would impact analysis tools that allow you to know for sure that these test cases or your automated test suite is in fact touching this part of the code or certifying this part of the code.
00:08:30 Tony Saineghi
I mean, you’re.
00:08:32 Tony Saineghi
You’re getting into a whole big realm of risk mitigation.
00:08:37 Tony Saineghi
From an automated test perspective, that’s uh. Crucial to digitizing your stack.
00:08:46 Gary Tyreman
Right, that that’s a huge benefit. I mean the reality is product launches can happen more rapidly now, right?
00:08:55 Gary Tyreman
Shifting left with.
00:08:56 Tony Saineghi
Well, they have to happen rapidly, right? I mean business is demanded, yeah. And they can, yes.
00:08:58 Gary Tyreman
Right, right. Well, with this hand too, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you have the you have the capability. You now, now you always have the drive for better, faster, more right. But where I was going with that is you know day two issues.
00:09:18 Gary Tyreman
Will always exists. They will persist and sure, regardless of the process and what have you, right, you can’t get.
00:09:25 Gary Tyreman
Zero but.
00:09:27 Gary Tyreman
It does.
00:09:28 Gary Tyreman
Happen and in in a in an environment that’s automated or an environment that’s manual. So your comments about risk mitigation is if I have an automation approach I can reduce day two issues because I’m aware of them sooner. Then you can make a business decision on.
00:09:44 Gary Tyreman
Risk, right? But.
00:09:46 Gary Tyreman
I’m not just testing something a little bit and then throwing it into the wild, so to speak, but there’s always day two issues. So my question is.
00:09:58 Gary Tyreman
Who is impacted like where, where in the in the business does that impact hit?
00:10:04 Gary Tyreman
Like, where is it felt?
00:10:06 Tony Saineghi
Yeah. I mean, every modernization effort I’ve been a part of.
00:10:10 Tony Saineghi
And I’ve got.
00:10:12 Tony Saineghi
I’ve got more than a Baker’s dozen under my belt, I think.
00:10:16 Tony Saineghi
That day 2 concept is the scariest 2 operations folks. I mean you say day two and the shoulder slump and the grey hairs develop and there’s there is a day two set of issues that should be adopted and understood, and it’s very successful. Firms and product launches understand this, but they also understand the risk that they’re taking so.
00:10:51 Tony Saineghi
When OPS folks shrug or sulk, I should say when they hear the term day two, it’s because their IT departments aren’t.
00:11:02 Tony Saineghi
Taking the time to measure what those impacts are with operations.
00:11:09 Tony Saineghi
The ones that do, they’re willing to go live with some defects and work arounds and day two issues knowing that the impacts are covered, knowing that they’ve got an extra set of hands at the right time, know that they’ve been trained.
00:11:28 Tony Saineghi
On those workarounds, and most importantly, they know when.
00:11:32 Tony Saineghi
The day 2.
00:11:33 Tony Saineghi
Item is going to get fixed because there’s other product launches.
00:11:37 Tony Saineghi
And that thus create more day two issues and exacerbate the day in the life of an OPS person. And now you’re now you’re getting into financial risk or you’re getting into scale issues within your operations workforce or burnout or you know things that are just.
00:11:57 Tony Saineghi
They don’t have to happen. If you’ve got a data-driven approach to you know what you’re going to mitigate and in that IT operations partner.
00:12:07
OK.
00:12:08 Tony Saineghi
Uh, the successful programs I’ve been on that IT Operations partnership has been there and it’s very important to have.
00:12:23 Gary Tyreman
Yeah, I can. I would not want to be on the phones that day. Day three maybe.
00:12:27 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, well, one of one of my favorite humans. He’s no longer with us. Unfortunately. Mike McKenzie. He was the head of operations at Mass Mutual retirement, which is now in power. But.
00:12:43 Tony Saineghi
He, during our modernization efforts that happened there he traveled.
00:12:50 Tony Saineghi
Two different IT vendors with the CIO and IT operate IT folks to understand the software systems and then Mike subsequently had his direct reports.
00:13:05 Tony Saineghi
Understand these vendor systems upfront and understood that he was on.
00:13:13 Tony Saineghi
The train to a better day with IT as opposed to you know, IT is doing something to operations right and kind of taking that passive role he was he was someone that I learned a great deal from in terms of.
00:13:19 Gary Tyreman
Right.
00:13:32 Tony Saineghi
You know, a fearless look to tomorrow, top down. We’re going to get through this type of approach that you know, I really when I see it in.
00:13:45 Tony Saineghi
Kickoffs and in programs that I’m involved in today that just it warms my heart because you know you’re going places; you know you’re not going to.
00:13:55 Tony Saineghi
Make decisions that are too expensive, and delay launches you know unnecessarily. But you also know that you’re going to create an efficient operation and ultimately a better service organization as a result, so.
00:14:10 Gary Tyreman
Right. So embrace it and drive it rather than waiting for it to hit.
00:14:15 Gary Tyreman
You right now you’re driving and putting into the process and very, very aware of what it is, but then you get to miss what?
00:14:20 Tony Saineghi
That’s right.
00:14:24 Gary Tyreman
A dear friend called embarrassing airs.
00:14:27 Tony Saineghi
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, embarrassing errors. Going back to my good friend Mike, he would have it. People go to the call centre and listen to some of the issues that, that, that call centre reps had to deal with. Yeah. I mean, he if I’m going to feel your pain, you’re going to feel my pain.
00:14:47 Tony Saineghi
And we’re going to, we’re going to jump off together, right? And it was. It was a lovely way of building a partnership that was based less about fear and more about trust building common.
00:15:00 Tony Saineghi
This and being able to be transparent with one another so that if there was an issue that came up, at least you know.
00:15:08 Tony Saineghi
You were.
00:15:09 Tony Saineghi
You were on the same page and could tackle.
00:15:12 Tony Saineghi
The issues together so.
00:15:14 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, it’s uh and. And so how do you how do you keep?
00:15:18 Tony Saineghi
That trust factor going right, I mean.
00:15:20 Tony Saineghi
And you guys see this now with the tools you’re building, I would imagine quite a lot, right, your tools are there to instill that confidence really to build that that partnership. So yeah, you guys, you guys see you guys, yeah.
00:15:40 Tony Saineghi
So do you guys see, like, you know, operations getting pulled in or different areas of the organization, you know, intrigued in this automation work that you guys are building it, it’s got to be beyond it at this point, right?
00:15:55 Gary Tyreman
I believe it is for sure, but I.
00:15:57 Tony Saineghi
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:57 Gary Tyreman
Don’t, I think.
00:15:58 Gary Tyreman
The other point of that is it allows it to partner with the business rather than just being a function that gives you stuff, right? The business can learn to work very closely with right and like your example.
00:16:16 Gary Tyreman
Rather than wait for it to be handed to you like an ice cream cone, you know, take the initiative, work together, because at the end of.
00:16:24 Gary Tyreman
May you know it’s.
00:16:26 Gary Tyreman
Common goals, right? It’s common goals, so as much as you can.
00:16:30 Gary Tyreman
Keep everyone happy, especially your customers and employees, right? And like you mentioned, burnout. You know, it’s we’ve already burned past our time again and we.
00:16:40 Gary Tyreman
Got to keep the mic going.
00:16:44 Gary Tyreman
It’s been good having another chat.
00:16:46 Tony Saineghi
Yeah. Great talking to you, Gary. Catch up soon. You too.
00:16:47 Gary Tyreman
Yeah, you take care, yeah.