Through decades, Insurance and Financial Services firms have grown their IT and data assets. All have started as a "green pasture" and many have evolved into a complex "jungle" of systems, data bases, interfaces and platforms.
NEOS Data Solutions provide clarity to key issues facing IT and data organizations today. These solutions are based on our practical experience with our clients through the years and provide quick, high-value, results using proven methodologies, tools and approaches. They are aligned with key drivers of today's business and technology climate.
NEOS Data Solutions include:
EIM & Corporate Risk
Enterprise information management (EIM) is an enterprise-level discipline implemented for defining, describing, structuring, and governing information assets across organizational and technological boundaries with the aim of improving corporate transparency, improving operational efficiency and mitigating corporate risk.
NEOS helps client's enable EIM strategies that bridge the divide of structured and unstructured data, enable transparency across business divisions, and provide a sound basis for managing corporate risk related to the use of data in the business.
In the worlds of insurance and financial services, the regulatory agency mandates have required that organizations have timely access to data to ensure "transparency". That transparency cannot be achieved without an over-arching data management practice that only EIM can provide. To make the leap to true EIM, NEOS has assembled an array of solutions to jump start your program.
Our EIM & Corporate Risk Solution includes:
- EIM maturity assessment
- EIM adoption plan
- Corporate risk needs and gap-to-current analysis
- Compliance data operations assessment
NEOS has helped clients evolve from "standard" data management and governance practices and organizations, to adapt to the broader business needs that only a true EIM strategy can satisfy.
Contact NEOS now to discuss your current data operations and how an EIM strategy might help your business succeed in this ever changing business climate.
Enterprise Data Topology
NEOS has developed a solution, coined an "Enterprise Data Topology", that provides a complete view of data in the enterprise by explaining its relationship to the business and then layering technology aspects of how that data is supported in an organizations systems.
Just as a topographical map provides depth and contour to the landscape it documents, the Data Topology provides a similar perspective for its "data landscape". Using business domains to establish a "Topology hierarchy", the Topology then integrates several additional layers to create "depth" and real understanding of the data landscape.
The Topology provides a basis for understanding the complexities of where data resides in organizations and how it is used.
Using our Topology solution, we associate:
- Business domains and subjects in a "Topology domain hierarchy"
- System Genre's ("genre's" roughly equate to business functions)
- Data context: displays data flows
- Technology information: technology platform specifics
- Lenses are provided to give perspective on how data is referred by all constituents within an organization
These key components provide a complete picture of how data is used within a company or division. Typically, this work can be completed within 6 to 8 weeks by a small team of NEOS senior consultants.
Clients use the Topology to:
- Establish governance
- Create an enterprise architecture
- Associate areas of meta-data by user groups
- Create a long-term data strategy
- Design a data consolidation or simplification roadmap
- Educate new members of a data or IT team or division
Please review our Downloads Section for Topology white papers and case studies.
Working together, we can quickly come up with a scope, duration and effort assessment for your organization. Contact NEOS find out how your organization can harness the information in a Data Topology.
Research Data Sandbox
The NEOS Research Data Sandbox is an architecture that supports analytical research through the correlation of disparate data. It is a database environment created to allow discovery of iteratively added data sources. The Sandbox supports the collection of data from external source systems (D&B, Morning Star, price files, etc.) in their native format and loosely associates data using a unified key architecture. The intent of the Sandbox is to provide a destination for Researchers to conduct discovery analysis before launching into a large, formal, IT effort.
A Sandbox Is |
Sandbox Is Not |
An environment and supporting processes that allow data to be loaded from different sources quickly and easily. |
A formal IT “production” architecture that requires heavy detailed IT analysis throughout. |
A place where data lies natively, with its good and bad traits. |
A storage area for scrubbed and cleansed data. |
A database that loosely links data through a unified key architecture. This linkage provides a method for Researchers to query and associate data. |
An area that supports the aggregation and tight/formal association of all data from multiple data sources (that would be a more formal data warehouse or mart). |
A place where Researchers can manipulate data and report on their impact. |
A place that locks down data to be “untouchable”. |
Data history may be retained, though requests must be made for each data set brought in. |
A system that stores data infinitely. Does not include cross-subject history. |
Researchers must have access to data quickly in order to conduct creative, effective, research. Whether it is claims actuarial research, quantative analysis or product research, the Sandbox fosters an environment where data can be brought together with the understanding that it is not a "production" environment. This environment supports the development of analytical models, forecasts, trend analysis and financial research.
Sandbox Governance
NEOS has also developed a candidate governance structure for Sandbox environments, so that IT and their Research partners jointly understand their respective roles in supporting such a flexible, nimble, environment. This governance structure is simply a baseline model that client's can modify as it best fits their organization.
Sandbox Keying Architecture
A "key" component of the Sandbox is the keying architecture. A keying architecture is developed to support linking between data sets so that research can be performed. Through our experience NEOS has developed candidate keying architectures for Personal Lines Auto, Claims Actuarial and Credit Ratings quantative research.