Enhancing a preexisting e-commerce app to improve efficiency and collaboration between IT teams and users

Understanding legacy system challenges

Integrating new technologies and processes can be difficult, but it is necessary for staying competitive in today’s market. This was especially true for MSIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited (MSIG Insurance).

Over the last two decades, MSIG Insurance has cultivated and used an internally developed e-commerce platform. This platform contains a wealth of accumulated knowledge and best practices, including company techniques for developing and offering MSIG Insurance products to customers through bancassurance and brokers. However, business users often had to intervene since there were still gaps between the platform and business processes,
introducing potential human errors and verification issues. Despite the need to transition to a new platform, replacing the existing e-commerce system created additional challenges.

Overall, MSIG Insurance faced two key challenges. The first was that they were still partially relying on manual, paper-based processes, which were time-consuming since physical documents needed to be handled, filed, retrieved and verified. Second, launching new services using legacy or outdated software, systems and applications slowed the product’s time-to-market and flexibility. This made it difficult for the company to stay agile and adapt to changing market or industry conditions, customer demands and regulatory requirements.

Despite these challenges, MSIG Insurance knew it would be complex and expensive to move away from their legacy processes and replace them with the new e-commerce platform. Thus, the company needed to find a solution for creating an e-commerce platform that would help with existing challenges and circumvent future integration issues. This led the company to use the Mendix™ Low-code platform, which is part of the Siemens Xcelerator business
platform of software, hardware and services.

Investigating a low-code solution

The main goal for MSIG Insurance was to develop a new e-commerce platform to replace the existing platform and support their growing digital business. With this e-commerce platform, the company aims to digitalize and improve customer experiences. They also aim to increase sales volume, revenue and customer numbers, reducing operation efforts, paperwork and
time-to-market. Although it became evident that off-the-shelf products fell short of meeting MSIG Insurance’s specific business requirements, developing a replacement e-commerce platform was difficult.

In pursuit of developing an improved e-commerce platform and maintaining leadership in insurance innovation, the company issued a request for proposal (RFP), inviting vendors to submit proposals and participate in the selection process, which involved evaluating a comprehensive proof of concept (POC). After the assessment, the company selected TBN
Corporation Public Company Limited (TBN), a Siemens Digital Industries Software partner, and investigated the benefits of using a low-code solution.

After receiving positive referrals and feedback from their partners, MSIG Insurance realized the Siemens and TBN teams were trustworthy and offered the best timeline for implementing their project.

Using Mendix to solve business challenges

With help from Siemens and TBN, MSIG Insurance identified the Mendix Low-code platform as the solution. The company chose Mendix because it was closely aligned with their business objectives, and they could use it to help with existing and potential challenges. “In a competitive landscape, using low-code is our advantage,” says Juntima Sirichanyawat,
assistant vice president (VP) of the strategy and planning department at MSIG Insurance. “Low-code is the foundation of our success story, allowing us to redefine insurance for the digital age.”

Using Mendix helped the company with its scalability and flexibility, ease of integration, user-friendly interface, support and training, customization capabilities and proven track record. Thanks to the ease of development using Mendix, MSIG Insurance was able to scale their business growth and accommodate market changes. By leveraging Mendix to create the new e-commerce platform, MSIG Insurance successfully transformed and digitized various manual, time-consuming, paper-based processes. This not only diminished errors but also enhanced operational efficiency.

Solidifying the choice of using Mendix versus other platforms was due to the additional support of Siemens and TBN’s proven track record, reputation and strong customer base. Not only was MSIG Insurance receiving a solution to create an improved e-commerce platform, but they also had support and training from the Siemens and TBN teams. With adequate support and training, the company’s employees could effectively use the low-code platform, maximizing its benefits and tailoring applications to meet specific business needs and processes.

Benefiting from a low-code solution

Using Mendix, MSIG Insurance was able to digitalize and streamline many manual, time-consuming, paper-based processes, reducing errors and improving operational efficiency. This low-code solution enables faster application development, allowing the company to bring new insurance products and services to market quicker and gain a competitive edge.

With the architecture of the new e-commerce platform, the information technology (IT) team changed the time-frame for developing a single microsite for customers, which previously took up to two months. “Using Mendix Low-code, we can generate customer microsites independently within 15 minutes, while users still have the flexibility to customize their page to meet customer needs,” says Sirichanyawat. To this end, IT workloads and backlogs have also reduced significantly for the IT department. This allows the IT department to deploy resources in other areas as necessary. The benefit comes from reducing ad hoc issues and
the fact that the new architecture allows for a new work division between IT and business users.

To further increase the company’s competitive edge, using this low-code solution provided workers with the flexibility to adapt to changing business and regulatory requirements. This also allowed the company to respond quickly to market changes, launch new products faster and adjust workflows when necessary. “Leveraging Mendix Low-code, we can unlock a world of possibilities in the insurance industry,” says Sirichanyawat. “It’s not just about what we do; it’s how fast we do it. That’s the advantage of using a low-code solution like Mendix. This new e-commerce platform enhances collaboration, reducing time-to-market and creating
new business opportunities.”

Overall, by adopting low-code technology, MSIG Insurance transformed the way they do business by automating processes, improving speed and agility, reducing costs and enhancing operation productivity and customer experiences. Further, this showed that the company can strategically respond to changes in the insurance industry and position itself for success in a competitive market. “Low-code technology empowers us to turn disruption into
opportunity,” says Sirichanyawat. “We’re rewriting the future of insurance with innovation at our core.”

Focusing on customers and sustainability

Leveraging the Mendix Low-code platform, MSIG Insurance created new products and platforms and grew steadily and sustainably. Also, by harnessing low-code technology, the company developed tailored microsites to enhance the efficiency of their partner’s operations. These microsites streamlined processes, reduced manual work and provided partners with real-time access to critical data, ultimately improving the overall partner and client experience.

After its success using Mendix, MSIG Insurance is actively pursuing its next set of goals. It aims to develop and enhance their customer engagement platforms to facilitate interactions, provide self-service options and gather feedback to improve services. Further, they hope to digitalize their after-sales service to provide more efficient, proactive and customer-centric
support. The company also wants to continue integrating sustainability initiatives into their operations and solutions, including exploring ways to reduce their environmental footprint. MSIG takes great pride in continuing to uphold its status as a leading digital insurer.