Skillcast Blog

Streamlining SMCR for Kentro Capital | Skillcast

Written by Libby Dean | 17 Jan 2023

When Kentro wanted to find a way to improve the efficiency of their SMCR compliance processes, they turned to Skillcast for advice and support.

Background

Headquartered in London, Kentro employs over 300 staff across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, the USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the USA.

It acts as a holding company for Nexus Underwriting, the largest independent specialty managing general agent (MGA) in the London market, and Xenia Broking, the leading credit insurance and surety distribution specialist.

Challenges

Kentro was using a mix of documents and spreadsheets alongside a legacy record system to manage their compliance with the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR). This created a need to resolve two key issues:

  1. It was difficult to maintain transparency and the administration weighed heavily on staff time.
  2. There was a greater risk of inconsistency, missed deadlines, and even potential errors in tracking and reporting.

Solution

Skillcast SMCR 360® is a suite of compliance tools that centralise, integrate and automate your SMCR processes.

By implementing SMCR 360®, Kentro was able to integrate its SMCR records to increase standardisation, improve accuracy and create efficiencies whilst minimising risk. This allowed Kentro to:

  • Streamline the approval of senior managers and annual certification of material risk takers
  • Automate record-keeping and chase-ups, saving time
  • Enforce firm-wide consistency of record-keeping
  • Improve accountability and management oversight
  • Identify upcoming SMCR-related tasks and potential compliance gaps
  • Be ready for audits, regulatory action and reference requests

Kentro took advantage of Skillcast’s customisation features to mirror the terminology and branding used by each of its business units and streamline new starter learning journeys using Skillcast.

Then, by integrating Skillcast Learning Management System with their HR platform, Kentro was able to reduce data errors further, identify gaps, eradicate inconsistencies, and improve the overall quality of management reporting.

Client feedback

The people experience team reported significant efficiency and accuracy gains from using Skillcast’s robust one-click reporting on all employees’ online and offline learning.

"Before working with Skillcast, I didn’t really appreciate what a 5-star Feefo rating meant. Now I do. Their customer service team is one of the best I have worked with during my career of over three decades. There is always a way to make the system do what we need; even if they’ve not done something before, they reconfigure things and make it work."

Talent Development Business Partner, Kentro Capital

Want to learn more about SMCR Compliance?

We have created an SMCR roadmap to help you navigate the compliance landscape, supported by a comprehensive library of SMCR Courses and a fully integrated SMCR 360 Compliance Toolkit.

We also have over 100 free compliance training aids, including assessments, best practice guides, checklists, desk aids, eBooks, games, posters, training presentations and even e-learning modules!

Finally, the SkillcastConnect community provides a unique opportunity to network with other compliance professionals in a vendor-free environment, priority access to our free online learning portal and other exclusive benefits.