Adaptability

May Edition (looking at April), 2024

Micro-what?

How adaptability in technology can be defined through micro-services!

Written with (mostly by) special guest author Ellen Kay

The rise of micro-services has sparked a revolution, promising unparalleled agility, scalability, and innovation. As a term, it gets thrown around a lot, but like many innovations, it can vary widely in interpretation. More importantly, it can sometimes be misunderstood altogether.

First and foremost, insurers need to understand their futures in the context of dramatically accelerated change.?

Unparalleled levels of macro-environmental changes are forcing insurers to re-evaluate their enterprise design., market-leaders now understand that ecosystem futures and fundamental shifts in how insurance will adapt to people’s ever evolving lives. Those that do are seeking huge shifts in the way they approach and evolve technology driven change.

To achieve this, an understanding of micro-services and why MACH ecosystems more broadly provide the “Lego” blocks needed to simplify change is essential. As is being able to tell the difference between real and less real microservice implementations. And at first glance, both real and ‘less real’ microservices may bear a striking resemblance. After all, they both involve breaking down monolithic applications into smaller, autonomous services, each responsible for discrete functions. However, the devil lies in the detail—and it is here that we uncover the true essence of microservices.

Real microservices embody the principles of modularity, autonomy, and decentralisation. They are designed to operate independently, with minimal dependencies and tight coupling. Each service encapsulates a specific business capability, communicating with other services via lightweight, language-agnostic APIs. This decoupled architecture enables organisations to develop, deploy, and scale services independently, fostering agility and resilience in the face of change.

On the flip side, what some folks somewhat controversially call ‘microservices’ and those who challenge them, may actually describe modularity and autonomy, but upon closer inspection, their facade begins to crumble. These imposters often retain vestiges of monolithic architecture, with tightly coupled services and shared dependencies lurking beneath the surface. While they may tout the buzzwords of microservices, their lack of true autonomy and independence betrays their counterfeit nature. This combined with built around a policy and you still have modernised legacy on your hands. These are lego blocks already fused together, it kills the ability to change the model and use the blocks in different ways.

The consequences of not being aware of the distinction between these definitions of microservices can be dire. Insurers may find themselves ensnared in a web of complexity, grappling with interoperability issues, and struggling to scale services independently. What began as their quest for agility and innovation may soon devolve into a tangled mess of dependencies and technical debt.

So, how can we distinguish between real microservices and the pretenders? The answer lies in a critical examination of architecture, design, and operational practices. Real microservices are characterized by loose coupling, independent deployment, and fault isolation. They embody a culture of autonomy and collaboration, empowering teams to innovate and iterate with confidence.

As organisations navigate the landscape of microservices, one thing remains clear: authenticity is key. Embracing the principles of true microservices paves the way for a future defined by agility, resilience, and innovation. It's time to separate the wheat from the chaff and chart a course towards a truly decentralised and modular architecture.

In summary, while some pretenders to the microservices space may provide a dazzling presentation some superficial benefits, they ultimately fall short of delivering the true value associated with microservices principles.

True microservices architectures, on the other hand, offer genuine advantages in terms of flexibility, scalability, resilience, and agility, enabling organizations to thrive in today's fast-paced and dynamic digital landscape.

Here's a comparison of the value provided by true microservices versus implementations that may not fully adhere to microservices principles:

Microservices

Decomposition of Monoliths: True microservices involve breaking down monolithic applications into small, independent services, each responsible for a specific business capability or function. This decomposition enables greater flexibility, scalability, and agility in software development and deployment. EIS?has a?distributed?event-driven?microservices?architecture. All subsystems, such as CustomerCore, PolicyCore, BillingCore, ClaimsCore, Rating, are built as?cloud-native microservices.

Pretenders

Monolithic Architecture with External APIs: In some cases, organisations may claim to have implemented microservices but still rely on a monolithic architecture internally. They may expose certain functionalities as external APIs, giving the appearance of microservices architecture without achieving true decomposition and independence of services.

Microservices

Independent Development and Deployment: The EIS microservices architecture allows teams to develop and deploy services independently, with minimal dependencies and coordination. This enables faster iteration, reduces bottlenecks, and fosters a culture of autonomy and ownership among development teams.

Pretenders

Tight Coupling and Shared Dependencies: In pretender microservices architectures, services may still have tight coupling and shared dependencies, making it challenging to deploy and scale services independently. Changes to one service may require coordination with other services, limiting agility and autonomy.

Microservices

Scalability and Resilience: The EIS microservices architecture facilitates horizontal scaling of individual services, allowing organisations to handle increasing workloads and ensure high availability. Services can be scaled independently (PolicyCore vs ClaimCore) based on demand, optimising resource utilisation and improving system performance.

Pretenders

Limited Isolation and Fault Propagation: In architectures that mimic microservices, failures in one service may still propagate to other services due to shared dependencies or tightly coupled components. This lack of isolation can lead to cascading failures and reduced resilience in the system. That downtime is a hit to the bottom line.?

Microservices

Isolation and Fault Tolerance: True microservices are designed to be isolated from one another, with each service running in its own process or container. This isolation improves fault tolerance, as failures in one service do not necessarily impact the entire system. Additionally, true microservices often incorporate resilience patterns, such as circuit breakers, and retry mechanisms to handle failures gracefully.

Pretenders

Limited Isolation and Fault Propagation: In architectures that mimic microservices, failures in one service may still propagate to other services due to shared dependencies or tightly coupled components. This lack of isolation can lead to cascading failures and reduced resilience in the system.

Microservices

API-based Communication: True microservices communicate with each other via lightweight, language-agnostic APIs. This decoupled communication enables loose coupling between services, making it easier to evolve and scale individual components independently.

Pretenders

Complexity without Benefits: Implementing any less will introduce unnecessary complexity without fully realizing the benefits of true microservices. Organisations may incur additional overhead in managing and maintaining a distributed architecture without achieving the expected gains in agility, scalability, and resilience.

Celebrating and uniting every aspect of the claims ecosystem. Acknowledging rising and established superstars in the world of claims.?

At this years Modern Claims Awards 2024 I was invited to be a judge, and I have to say the experience was great. I learned a lot and the Modern Insurance Magazine team are great fun too! My thanks goes to everyone involved, and some very special award recipients.

Click here to read more.

Inside the clouds transformative impact on Financial Services

My thanks to FinTech Magazine and Tom Chapman for providing a chance to talk about the clouds transformative impact on Financial Services & Insurance.

See why I say thing like..."Scalability, adaptivity in change and extensibility have made cloud strategies fundamental rather than optional or just desirable in insurance,” continues Yates. ??

Click here to read more.

Beyond beige - the untapped potential of unserved niches

"This discussion was far from beige. Please give it a listen." - Robin Merttens

Hear what Ben Ruddle from Publicis Sapient has to say to InsTech about how the increased prevalence of standardised insurance products is marginalising those with characteristics that place them outside the core footprint of that standard product.

Click here.

In the Hot Seat again!

I am so proud to be in these conversations with Lisa Wardlaw, her podcast series is an example of the person she is.

Not only is the format and approach adapting and improving all the time, she is "keeping it real", challenging the norms always prepared to extend her discussions to the most vital and important topics in insurance. ??

And I was lucky enough to be invited to another episode Insurance Unplugged, this time in the hot seat we got to go big. ??

In this episode we discussed the importance of leveraging dynamicism and human-first thinking in the context of AI. We emphasize the need for a more adaptive and value-creating world, where AI plays a critical role. Among so many others.

At the end we conclude this with a positive take-out and important call to action, please do take a listen: https://lnkd.in/eNJwB3Fy

Could Jaguar Land Rover issues derail OEM Insurance Ambitions

I was lucky enough to speak with Tom Luckham and Insurance Post as he tackles this critical topic.

And whilst we see moves from OEM's and we see small shifts in Motor Insurers these two worlds are set to further collide, and about time too! ??

See why I say things like: ?? "While they obviously don’t provide the insurance themselves, they do a much better job integrating in the repair network than some others on the market, taking some of the hassle out of the insurance purchasing process." ??

Click here to read more.

HOT TOPIC: World Property and Casualty Report

I was honored to be part of this wonderful panel, research process and report development with Capgemini and Luca Russignan and team.

This is extremely timely. In a world of evolving risks and escalating customer needs, traditional underwriting methods in the property and casualty insurance industry are facing unprecedented challenges.

Modernization is essential for rebuilding trust between individuals and organizations seeking risk protection with their carrier.For a long time now the ambitious insurer has pursued:

?? Risk Removing

?? Embedded

?? Human Centric (AI+)

? Carbon Neutral

This report showcases a practical Intelligent Underwriting Playbook to explore why underwriting transformation is no longer an option but a necessity. And critical to all of these changes. Not least the need to dramatically shorten the time between deriving an insight from data and acting on it, getting to as near to real-time as is possible. Which is where I often see the intersection between underwriting specific technologies and core-technologies, turning brilliant dynamic (stolen from Lisa Wardlaw) underwriting into products and experiences.

They have interviewed underwriters, policyholders, and insurance leaders worldwide, revealing a stark truth:

?? underwriting potential lies untapped across the sector. The time for transformation is now, and trailblazers are leading the way. ??

Click here to read more. And download this report.

GenAI helping make things easier

Leveraging EIS Ltd, and our joint partners Amazon Connect technology in their customer contact centre and a Large Language Model to generate content in real-time, enhancing the customer journey and overall experience. The esure Group data science team have led the development, supported cross-functionally to ensure their solutions deliver the desired business benefits.

This is what pioneering ecosystems look like, great to see, and exciting to watch this data science team continue this journey.

Click here to read more.

Is Innovation the Holy Grail?

I tapped into my inner Michael Dwyer for this one. Special thanks to the always epic Francis Bignell and The Fintech Times.

For a long time I've advocated for innovation to be what I used to call "managed innovation" much more of a working model within financial services businesses, not something in a "garage" or "lab", and certainly not something ultimately putting sticky plasters over legacy technology, or simply playing up to legacy mindsets.

Click here to read more.