Spotlight on Anthony Bevington: Pushing Technical Excellence in Insurance
Can you share your journey to becoming a Scrum Master at Alchemy?
My journey at Alchemy began in 2019 as a Technical Analyst, bringing with me a strong background in information technology and services. Over the years, I’ve dedicated myself to continuous learning, which has led me to my current role as a Scrum Master. This journey of growth and adaptation has allowed me to contribute effectively to our team’s success.
How has your role evolved since Alchemy expanded its operations to include Alchemy London Market (ALM)?
Alchemy’s expansion in offering services for the London Market led my role to evolve and include closer collaboration with ALM’s project delivery team, including business analysts and project managers. With ALM coming on board, I had the opportunity to learn and access industry knowledge that helps me understand more about business processes and the intricacies of the London Market.
I have hands on experience on being part of initial client workshops that help us shape the resulting product better by advising what would work from a technical perspective. This dramatically adds value and reduces the required time as the technical and business teams can work seamlessly together.
Also, I had the opportunity to expand my skills through training. I am now a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and focusing on expanding my London Market knowledge through certifications from the Chartered Insurance Insitute (CII).
What benefits have you observed from combining ALM’s industry knowledge with Alchemy’s technical proficiency in our project implementations?
We can meet client expectations across the entire project lifecycle by combining our strengths. This alignment has allowed us to implement end-to-end project delivery capability and foster continuity, cost reduction, and governance control by leveraging better communication and a wider skillset between the project and technical teams. For example, including my scrum master certifications and technical expertise, we can provide a more efficient agile approach.
The collaboration between the two regional teams empowers us to navigate challenges more effectively and deliver innovative solutions that drive tangible results for our clients.
What is one of the major challenges you address with technology for clients?
One of the major challenges we address is adapting technology to meet the evolving needs of our clients in the insurance sector. This involves overcoming legacy system constraints, ensuring seamless integration, and delivering solutions that enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
For example, moving away from paper-based processes and transitioning to a digital environment poses major challenges for the industry. To achieve cost and operational effective processes, we will need to continue implementing seamless systems which take away from using paper and transition to cloud-based solutions to manage various stages of the insurance lifecycle. Then, it is up to the people of the organisation to see these changes as opportunities to enhance business processes and this can be done through training programmes and rewarding a culture of innovation.
With a wider range of Partners after the acquisition of ALM, the technical team was exposed to implementing and configuring new Partner software. How has this impacted your approach to project delivery and client satisfaction?
The access to a wider range of partner software has enriched our approach to project delivery and client satisfaction.
We are working with insurance software that we didn’t have the chance to do so in the past, which helped us diversify and expand the skillset in the team, as we are big believers of the “train the trainer” approach to spread knowledge amongst the team.
By leveraging our expertise in configuring partner software, we can tailor solutions to meet our clients’ needs more effectively and offers more advantages and benefits to our on the entire insurance value chain.
How do you approach knowledge sharing within the technical team, and how has it impacted skill development?
We approach knowledge sharing through training programs, practical exercises, and mentorship, fostering a culture of continuous learning and development within the team. For example, if a team member becomes an SME when configuring a specific software, we encourage playback sessions to spread knowledge and skills. By sharing insights and best practices, we can enhance our skills and expertise, enabling us to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our clients in more accurate and effective ways.
What are your aspirations for your role at Alchemy, and how do you envision contributing to the company’s continued success in driving innovation and value for clients?
My aspirations for my role at Alchemy revolve around driving technical excellence and innovation in the insurance technology sector. I aim to leverage our expertise to deliver cutting-edge solutions addressing evolving needs across the insurance value chain for our clients.
Technology fascinates me; I’m looking forward to implementing new technology solutions to help clients continue to innovate and stay ahead of the competition.
For example, with the rise of AI, we see more cases applied in insurance, which brings exciting times ahead. Tautona.ai, one of our partners, already accelerates digital transformation in the insurance industry by using intelligent claims automation solutions powered by pre-trained robots and AI providing a unique end-to-end solution.
