Ardcarne Life Assurance / BB-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Ardcarne Life Assurance: documents · 2026-05-08 09:15
Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, saw the demo on 8 May 2026 and found nothing wrong with the product. She says the deal now turns on four security paperwork items. Matteo Ricci restated the £155,000 engagement figure and the 30 Jun 2026 target.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, saw the demo on 8 May 2026 and found nothing wrong with the product. She says the deal now turns on four security paperwork items. Matteo Ricci restated the £155,000 engagement figure and the 30 Jun 2026 target.
What happened: Matteo Ricci and Theo Gallagher demoed the broker view, role-based search, dashboards and connector page on a masked extract. Ronan was not on the call and is to receive a two-line summary from Niamh.
Customer view: Niamh named the exit plan, incident notification terms, sub-processor list and operating access model as what the security officer will judge. She said she came in sceptical and liked that the brain declined to rank unhappiness.
Commercial: Matteo said the £155,000 is a total for the engagement, implementation included, and not an annual price. Discounts were deferred until scope is settled and procurement is involved.
Watch: the exit plan does not yet cover a stressed exit and is marked as a draft to come. The evidence does not show whether the order form was signed by the 30 Jun 2026 target.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Demo and security paperwork
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Theo Gallagher to send open findings with owners, then a draft exit plan to Niamh first.
- Matteo Ricci to send the proposal with implementation and subscription shown separately.
- Niamh Costello to supply connector owners and arrange the security officer's slot.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The exit plan does not yet cover a stressed exit, and the customer says vague paperwork will lead its security officer to refuse.
- Most questions asked early on would come from Niamh herself, a key-person risk for the Enterprise subscription.
- The policy platform connector has no confirmed date and depends on the customer's technology group.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Enterprise tier with single sign-on, provisioning and dashboards builder matches what the customer asked to see.
- An on-site training day add-on may follow once the first group of team leaders has tried the brain.
- The customer's analysts want dashboards from day one, which shows investment in the product.
Transcript
Matteo Ricci NoneGood morning, Niamh. Can you see and hear us both?
Niamh Costello NoneGood morning, Matteo. Yes, I can. And you must be Theo. We have swapped a few emails but not met.
Theo Gallagher NoneGood morning, Niamh. Yes, Theo. Pleased to meet you properly. I have been looking at your sample extract for most of this week, so I feel I know your brokers already.- Niamh Costello NoneLet's hope they are behaving. Sorry, I am slightly out of breath, I came straight from a stand-up that ran over.
- Matteo Ricci NoneNo apology needed, it is early for a Friday. Take a minute. Water, coffee.
- Niamh Costello NoneRight, I am here. Fresh coffee in hand. Shall we begin?
- Matteo Ricci NonePlease. Let me restate the plan, as I always do, so we are not guessing. Our working target for the order form is still Tuesday 30 June 2026. Today is the demo, on the masked extract your data office provided. After that comes the security review with your CISO, and procurement, and then paperwork. Ronan is not on today, correct?
- Niamh Costello NoneCorrect. I told him it would be a demo and he has asked for a two line summary afterwards. He does not need to watch it.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThen he will get two lines, and they will be accurate. Theo, would you like to open?
- Theo Gallagher NoneThanks, Matteo. Before I share my screen, a quick word on the security review, because I took it over recently and I want you to hear the position from me. There are a small number of open findings from the questionnaire so far. Two sit with us: the exit plan wording, and the evidence for the sub-processor list. The remaining ones sit with your CISO's team, mainly confirming which of your environments the brain would run in. I will send the list with owners after the call, so nobody is chasing.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is helpful, and it is the way I like it. Which of those would worry you if you were in my seat?
- Theo Gallagher NoneThe exit plan, honestly. Not because there is a gap, but because it has to be precise and it has to be something you can show a supervisor. A control reference is only as good as the evidence behind it, so I will not call it final until your CISO has read it.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. I need him comfortable, so I would rather it is slow and right.
- Theo Gallagher NoneUnderstood. Right, sharing now. You should see a page with a broker firm at the top. Can you see it clearly?
- Niamh Costello NoneI can. It is a bit small. Could you make it larger?
- Theo Gallagher NoneOf course. Is that better?
- Niamh Costello NoneMuch better, thank you.
- Theo Gallagher NoneSo this is the thing you asked for on the first call, one view of each broker firm. I have taken one firm from the extract. At the top you have the firm itself, with the three spellings you mentioned resolved into one record, and underneath, everything the brain has linked to it. The commercial relationship from the CRM, the ticket history from the helpdesk, the call recordings, and the email threads from the shared mailboxes.
- Niamh Costello NoneThe spellings, that is a surprise. How did it decide they were the same firm?
- Theo Gallagher NoneFair question, and I will not oversell it. It matched on the contact domain and on the registered name, then I reviewed the matches by hand for the demo. In production we would agree a match rule with your data office and keep a list of the ones that need a person to decide. It will not be perfect on day one, and I would rather say so.
- Matteo Ricci NoneAnd I would add, Niamh, that this is exactly where your analysts add value. They are not reconciling by hand any more, they are settling the exceptions.
- Niamh Costello NoneWhich is a much better use of them. Carry on, Theo.
- Theo Gallagher NoneNow the part I think you will care about most. I am going to ask it a question in plain English, as a customer service team leader would. I will type: which broker firms have an open query and a recent complaint about commission statements?
- Theo Gallagher NoneAnd it comes back with a short list. Each firm has a line that says why it is on the list, and on the right you can see the sources. This one is a ticket, this one is a call, this one an email. If I click through, it opens the original record, and highlights the sentence it used.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is the citation I wanted. Can I check something? If that ticket was edited afterwards, would the brain show the old text or the new?
- Theo Gallagher NoneIt shows what was in the source at the last refresh, with the refresh time next to it. If the source changes, the next refresh picks it up. I would not describe it as real time. It is a nightly refresh, and the time of the last one is visible on the page, so nobody mistakes yesterday for this morning.
- Niamh Costello NoneVisible is what I need. Because someone, somewhere, will ask whether it is current, and I want the page to answer.
- Theo Gallagher NoneIt does. Now let me switch the role, as you asked. I am going to view the same question as a distribution account manager, and then as a customer service agent. Watch the commercial section.
- Theo Gallagher NoneAs the account manager, you see the commercial notes, the agreed terms, and the relationship history. Now as the service agent, same firm, same question. The commercial terms are gone. The ticket history and call summaries remain, and there is a note that some information is hidden for this role.
- Niamh Costello NoneSay that last part again. A note that some is hidden?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. It tells the person that there is information they are not permitted to see, without telling them what it is. That avoids the agent assuming that an empty section means nothing exists.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. That is a nice detail. I had not thought of that, but it matters. An empty field can be misread as a clean bill of health.
- Matteo Ricci NoneNiamh, may I ask what does good look like for you here? You said on the first call that you wanted the same question to give a different answer to a different person, correctly. Is that what you wanted to see?
- Niamh Costello NoneIt is. But I would like to know how the permissions are defined. Are they copied from the source systems, or does somebody build a separate set in the brain?
- Theo Gallagher NoneBoth, and I want to be careful here. On the Enterprise tier there is single sign-on and provisioning, so the identity comes from your own directory and roles follow your groups. The record level rules are then built from the source permissions plus a policy layer your data office controls. We can evidence that with a configuration export, and I will include a sample in the pack for your CISO.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is the right answer. Please do include it.
- Theo Gallagher NoneWill do. Let me show you something different. Dashboards. Matteo mentioned in the first call that you have an analyst team, so I built a small one. It tracks, by broker firm, open queries over time, and the share of queries that are about commission. I did it with the builder in about the time it took to talk to you.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is quick. Who would maintain it?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYour analysts. It is deliberately not something we hold. They build, they own, they change it. We are there for the platform.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. I would rather my own people owned it. Otherwise it becomes another thing that waits in a supplier's queue.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat is quite a common instinct in regulated firms, and it is a sensible one.
- Niamh Costello NoneCan we go back to the chat for a moment? Can I try a question myself? I would like to see how it behaves with something awkward.
- Theo Gallagher NonePlease. Tell me what to type, or I can hand over control if you prefer.
- Niamh Costello NoneYou type. Ask it: which of our broker firms is the most unhappy with us, and why?
- Theo Gallagher NoneTyping it as you said it. And here is the result.
- Niamh Costello NoneHm. It has not named one. It says it cannot rank firms by sentiment from the sources available, and offers to list the firms with the most open complaints instead.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThat is deliberate, and I think it is the right behaviour. It will not invent a ranking of unhappiness. It will give you counts it can evidence and then show you the records. If you want the sentiment view, your team can define what that means and we build it as a dashboard with a stated rule.
- Niamh Costello NoneI like that more than I expected. I was braced for a confident guess.
- Theo Gallagher NoneIt is a trade off. You will sometimes get an answer that is less exciting. In your sector I would argue that is the correct trade.
- Niamh Costello NoneMm. Let me try another. Ask: what did we agree with this firm on the last call?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. And it gives a summary of the last recorded call with that firm, with three points, and a link to the recording at the moment each was said.
- Niamh Costello NoneRight. And that is the call recorder's own transcript, or yours?
- Theo Gallagher NoneThe recorder's transcript. We index what it produces, we do not re-record anything. If the recorder's text is wrong, the brain will be wrong too, which is why the link to the original matters.
- Matteo Ricci NoneCan I pause to ask a question, Niamh? Of what you have seen so far, what would you want the front line to see on day one, and what would you hold back?
- Niamh Costello NoneDay one, the broker view and the search, for team leaders. I would hold back the free chat for the front line until we are confident, as I said before. Let's not over-engineer the first release. But I want my analysts on the dashboards from the start.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat fits with the phased audience we discussed. Theo, is that configurable per group?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. Features can be enabled by group, so the front line can have search and the broker page without chat until you decide otherwise.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. Now, the harder things. Can we talk about where this runs? I know Matteo has said it is inside our Snowflake account, but I would like to hear it from the engineer.
- Theo Gallagher NoneOf course. The brain is deployed into your Snowflake account. Storage, compute and the indexes all live there, under your account's controls, your keys and your access policies. We operate it through a defined access path, which is logged on your side. Nothing is copied to an environment we own.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd the operating access, who holds it?
- Theo Gallagher NoneA named, small group of our engineers, granted by you, with the grant visible and revocable on your side. I will need to confirm the exact structure with the platform team before I put it in writing. I would rather do that than describe it from memory and be wrong.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you for not guessing. That is the sort of answer my CISO will trust.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThat is how I would like to work. Dated commitments, each one with an owner. If I do not know, I say so and I say when I will.
- Niamh Costello NoneLet me ask the DORA question, then, since it will come up. If we wanted to leave, what would we take with us, and how?
- Theo Gallagher NoneGood. So, because everything is in your account, the data, the indexes, the dashboards and the configuration are already yours. Leaving is mostly us removing our access and the deployed components, and you keeping what is there. What you would lose is the managed service, updates, and our support. The exit plan document sets out the steps, who does what, and in what order, and it is one of the open items I mentioned at the start.
- Niamh Costello NoneWhat does a stressed exit look like? Say BB-Demo has a bad month, or is acquired, or simply stops.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThat is the scenario the plan has to cover, and I will make sure it addresses it explicitly rather than only the orderly case. I would not call the current wording complete for that. I will bring a revised draft, marked as a draft, with a date on it.
- Matteo Ricci NoneAnd that is something I would want written into the paperwork, Niamh, not left in a policy appendix. What does your regulator need to see on a stressed exit?
- Niamh Costello NoneThat we have identified it, we know who acts, and we know how long we can operate without the supplier. Our CISO and procurement colleagues will want to test the last part. I will make sure they have the draft the moment it exists.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThank you. I will send it to you first, as you asked, rather than direct to them, so you can see it before it moves.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. I do not like finding out things in other people's inboxes.
- Theo Gallagher NoneUnderstood. Shall I show you the connector side? It is relevant for the technology group you mentioned.
- Niamh Costello NonePlease. Yes.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThis is the connector page. Each source is a row: the CRM, the helpdesk, the call recorder, the mailboxes, and a placeholder for the policy platform. For each there is a status, the last successful load, and the number of records indexed. If a source stops loading, this is where it shows first, and the flat line on records is the early warning.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd if a source stops loading because we changed something, say a field name?
- Theo Gallagher NoneThat is the commonest cause. A system change on the customer side, a renamed field, a new permission. The connector flags it, and the page tells the owner. It is also why I want a named owner per connector from day one, because someone on your side usually knows a change is coming before we do.
- Niamh Costello NoneI will give you the owners. The policy platform one will be the slowest. Technology group, as I said.
- Matteo Ricci NoneWhich is why I will not put a date on that connector in anything I send you until Theo has agreed it with the platform team. I would rather the proposal said to be confirmed than showed a date that moves.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. That is exactly what I mean by not accepting vague timelines, though. To be confirmed, by whom, and by when?
- Matteo Ricci NoneFair challenge. By Theo, with the platform team, and I will put a date for the answer in my note today. Theo, can you commit to a date for that answer?
- Theo Gallagher NoneI can commit to confirming with the platform team, and I will have the answer ready for the security call next week. That is a commitment for the answer, not for the connector going live.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is clear. Thank you, Theo.
- Theo Gallagher NoneLet me finish the tour with the admin side, because someone will ask. Here is the usage view. It shows questions asked, by group, and who is asking them. One thing I would point out is that it shows when a large share of the questions comes from one person. That is something we watch with customers, because if that person leaves, the value goes with them.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is a useful thing to see. I can already tell you it would be me, at the start.
- Matteo Ricci NoneWhich is common, and honest. It is part of why I want the phased audience, so that you are not the only one in the room.
- Niamh Costello NoneFair. Though I would like the credit when it works.
- Matteo Ricci NoneYou will have it, and in writing.
- Niamh Costello NoneLet me ask about the numbers, Matteo, so I can brief Ronan accurately. You gave me the working figure on the first call. Has it moved?
- Matteo Ricci NoneNo, it has not. The deal value is still £155,000, as a total for the engagement, implementation included. It is not an annual price, and I do not want that to be misquoted upward. When I send the proposal, I will separate the one-off implementation from the annual subscription, so Ronan sees two clear lines.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. And discounts, is there anything on the table, or is that for later?
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat is for later, once the scope is settled and your procurement colleagues have had their say. I would rather not trade on price before we know what the scope really is, and I am sure you would not either.
- Niamh Costello NoneI would not. Scope first. Ronan will ask about it, but he will not negotiate detail himself, so it will land with procurement.
- Matteo Ricci NoneUnderstood. Let me confirm that in writing as well, who handles which part.
- Theo Gallagher NoneNiamh, can I ask a practical question before we go further? In the demo you asked about customer service agents. Do they use the helpdesk on a shared login, or individual accounts?
- Niamh Costello NoneIndividual, thankfully. It was one of our audit points a couple of years ago. Everything is named.
- Theo Gallagher NoneGood, that makes the role mapping clean. Shared logins are a nightmare for this kind of thing.
- Niamh Costello NoneI have scars. Let me ask something about training. When we go live, how do the team leaders learn this? I do not want a hundred page manual.
- Matteo Ricci NoneElena Novak, our customer success lead, will run that with you. In practice it is short working sessions on real questions from your own team, not a lecture. There is also an on-site training day available as an add-on if you want people in a room, and I would suggest you decide that after the first group has had a go.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat seems sensible. I would rather pay for the day when I know it is needed.
- Matteo Ricci NoneExactly. Now, a question back to you. You have now seen the broker view, the search, the dashboards, the permissions and the connector page. What is missing? What would make you uncomfortable taking this to your CISO?
- Niamh Costello NoneHonestly, nothing in the product. I think the answer is in the paperwork. The exit plan, the incident notification terms, the sub-processor list and the operating access model. If those are right, I think he will be content. If they are vague, he will say no, and he will be correct.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThose four are precisely the open items I listed at the start, so we are aligned. I will make them the spine of the pack.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. I would like them numbered, matching the questionnaire, so he can tick them off.
- Theo Gallagher NoneNumbered, with control references and the evidence attached to each. That is how I prefer to do it anyway.
- Niamh Costello NoneWonderful. One more thing, a small one. The outage conversation. A colleague in procurement raised the question of how you report on availability, because she wants to see the history. Can she have that?
- Matteo Ricci NoneYes. I would rather you heard it from me that there is an availability history, and that any incident, however small, will be in the material your CISO sees. Nothing will be left out. Theo will include it in the pack.
- Theo Gallagher NoneI will include the incident history with dates and what we changed afterwards. I will mark clearly anything still being investigated rather than call it closed.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat will go down well. Thank you both.
- Matteo Ricci NoneLet me try to close this out properly. Who sends what, and by when. Theo, from you?
- Theo Gallagher NoneFrom me: first, the list of open findings with an owner against each, today. Second, a draft of the exit plan with the stressed scenario covered, marked as a draft, sent to Niamh first. Third, the evidence pack with numbered answers, including the configuration export for permissions and the incident history. Fourth, confirmation from the platform team on operating access and on the policy platform connector, ahead of the security call next week.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is clear. Please put the dates in the email, rather than relative words. I will forward it to our CISO.
- Theo Gallagher NoneI will. Dated and owned.
- Matteo Ricci NoneFrom me: a written summary of the demo today, in plain language, so you can forward it. The proposal, with implementation and subscription shown separately and the figure confirmed in writing. A short note with the service commitments from the Enterprise order form template, so your procurement colleague reads the real wording and not my recollection. And an introduction to Elena.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd from me: the connector owners, including the right person in the technology group, the names for the security call, and a word with Ronan to give him his two lines. I will also ask our CISO for a slot. I would like him on the call with Theo, not reading about it.
- Matteo Ricci NonePlease. Directly is always better. Thank you, Niamh.
- Niamh Costello NoneCan I say what I thought of the demo, for the record? I came in sceptical, because most of these products look wonderful with clean data. This looked reasonable with ours, and what I liked most was when it said it could not rank unhappiness. That told me something about how you build.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThank you. That was deliberate, and it is one of the things I would defend.
- Matteo Ricci NoneI will pass that to the team. Thank you, genuinely. And I will say once more that we will keep the end of June as our working target, and I will tell you early if it looks like moving.
- Niamh Costello NonePlease do. That is all I ask. What about Ronan, what does he need to do next?
- Matteo Ricci NoneNothing yet, in my view. Once your CISO and procurement colleagues are content, he will have a short summary and a clear question, and I will make sure he is not surprised by anything in the contract.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. He will like that. Is Declan content, is how he will put it, so I need the answer to be yes before it reaches him.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThen we will aim to give your CISO what he needs to say yes, or to tell us precisely why not.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is fair. Right, I should let you go. I have a meeting I am already late for.
- Matteo Ricci NoneOf course. Thank you, Niamh, and thank you, Theo. Have a good weekend when it comes.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThanks, both. Speak next week.
- Niamh Costello NoneBest, both. Goodbye.
- Matteo Ricci NoneBest regards. Speak soon.
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