SEMCI: STRAIGHT TALK

Changing technology doesn't change
the definition of SEMCI

By Gregory A. Maciag, President & CEO, ACORD

It amazes me when I hear people debate SEMCI (single entry, multiple company interface). Some say it is an ill-conceived concept. Others say it's dead, or a re-animated corpse. The debate seems to throw the baby out with the bath water.

In the past, software was independently created to be either self-contained or useful within a family of related products. Developers added code and complexity rather than thinking about how these products would be used in the real world. And we can see the result of these systems all around us in every industry, as we fix, patch, and connect islands of computing.

I define SEMCI, at its most basic level, as the entry of data one time in a computer system. In other words, if it's already in a computer, all you need to do is share or transfer it. You do not want to enter it again, ever, regardless of the number of companies or software applications that use it. For independent agencies, SEMCI means entering insured application information once into their agency management systems for automatic transfer to insurers.

Single entry also means the entry of data one time for use in different insurer applications. Integrating data among underwriting, claims, billing, policy issuance, risk management and reinsurance systems is equally important. Data must be shared. Perhaps the confusion comes about when we define single entry in terms of the technology used to achieve it. We get snarled in discussions about real time processing versus batch-store-forward processing.

We also talk about the duplication of data at various locations when perhaps it can be shared from a single location. All valid, but the basic and simple fact is that we all want to avoid doing work twice. Jim Cutro, president and CEO of the Alliance for Productive Technology (APT), has stated that "SEMCI is not about technology, but rather, is all about workflow." He's right and, as a result of industry standards, vendors are able to move information from place to place today with a lot less trouble than a few years ago.

The "multiple company" ingredient of SEMCI is a given for any business. Few organizations do business with a single trading partner. Partners may include agencies, insurers, managing general agents, adjusters, glass companies, body shops, financial institutions, lienholders and even policyholders. Typical business transactions involve exchanging information with hundreds and probably thousands of customers and businesses. In effect, EDI has become the enabler that allows us to share information that is common to all trading partners and to increase everyone's productivity.

Yes, the world has changed (and will continue to do so). Yes, we now think in terms of real-time Internet-centric browser-based platforms. Yes, we must make provisions for unstructured data such as e-mails, spreadsheets, images, video and audio files in our workflow and as part of standards-setting. Yes, the way we achieve SEMCI today will be different than the way we conceived it 20 years ago. And yes, it will probably be different again, 20 years in the future.

But the idea of doing work one time, in a consistent way, and sharing it with anyone else is just as relevant today as it was in the past. We are always open to new ideas and new solutions, but there are some basic tenets that survive time. SEMCI is one of them.*