STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE
The rich rewards of a SOA
“With the use of the eBusiness Centre the technical implementation time for a new product has clearly decreased! Didier Beck, CEO ecenter solutions, a Helvetia Group company
Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are becoming an increasingly popular approach to designing and building enterprise computing environments. Why? Just ask Helvetia…
The Helvetia Group is a Swiss-based life insurance firm that provides multiple lines of insurance to customers across the world, with an expertise in risk management and pensions. Back in 2001, the business operated very much on a regional basis, with little collaboration across the organisation. In order to expand its market share, Helvetia wanted to move away from these regional silos and decided to implement a centralised Internet-based platform that would bring together all of its regional employees, partners and customers – and ultimately open up new distribution channels. Built from scratch in conjunction with HP Services experts, the Web servicesbased solution enabled Helvetia to consolidate 15 different types of services and platforms onto one industry-standard e-business platform. As Web services standards and technologies have matured over time, the team has developed an architectural backbone on which the eBusiness Centre operates, providing a highly secure SOA with three layers: presentation, application and database. The core technologies used are BEA WebLogic Application Server, Java Server Pages and XML/XSL – the latter is used to combine the Helvetia Group’s various legacy systems into a loosely coupled single e-business system. Furthermore, in addition to the first eBusiness Center project, seven other applications have since been developed, integrated and successfully taken to production.
When change is the only solution
The project was sparked by a number of operational challenges. The Helvetia Group had identified the need to increase collaboration between the regional companies, as well as across external stakeholders. In particular, this was driven by an increasing trend of outsourcing business processes to clients, suppliers and partners, which would require a more flexible IT platform. This requirement led to the decision to implement a single standardised solution for the whole company – one that would enable collaborative working and knowledge sharing, and that would be based on reliable Web services for multi-channel access and multi-system integration.
A better solution by design
The eBusiness Centre provides a single, consistent platform that streamlines data gathering and interactions across the business, while maintaining high levels of quality and customer service. Of course, to implement such a large-scale solution required significant financial investment – and Helvetia was sensibly reluctant to part with large sums of cash upfront without any guarantee of seeing a return on that investment. Therefore, HP offered a transparent and modular way of working that comprised a series of six-month segments at the end of which progress could be measured. Clear milestones and deadlines were presented to the customer, along with options on how to proceed at each segment. In January 2006 the eBusiness Center was spun off into an independent company named “ecenter solutions”. In joint collaboration with HewlettPackard, ecenter solutions is providing its SOA products and services for the market.
Moving to a Service Oriented Architecture – one step at a time
And so the Helvetia eBusiness Centre solution was developed. After a successful pilot project phase, assisted by HP, it was officially kicked off in July 2001 – alongside the first e-business project. The first business modules were released in February 2002. This careful, step-by-step approach allowed the first building blocks of the new environment to develop rapidly, cost-effectively and in a modular way that allowed the company to evolve its systems without compromising its hardware and software investments.
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HP Solutions for the Adaptive Enterprise
TRANSFORMER AUTUMN 2006
Measuring success through results
So, what kind of investments had to be made by Helvetia to build the solution and what have the quantifiable results and benefits been? Thoughtware Worldwide LLC, an independent consulting firm, performed a detailed investigation into the investments and measurable returns from Helvetia's eCentre development. What they found was a six-year return on investment of over 200%.
Quantifiable results
Close to 60% reduction in operational costs for e-business solutions 75% reduction in time to market of new products Increased business volume from distribution channels 3-year return on investment of over 110% (over 200% in 6 years)
How?
Greater efficiency of the eBusiness Centre solution Simplified implementation and re-use of existing services Implementation of the new multi-channel communications and sales platform Increased business volume and cost-avoidance on agent headcount and infrastructure spending
Total Benefits Composition
eBusiness Centre Volume Throughput, 24%
Total Avoided Infrastructure Spend, 9% Avoided Other Headcount, 1% Additional required functionality, 1% Avoided Agents Headcount, 65%
Based on research and analysis conducted by Thoughtware Worldwide, LLC.
Benefits
Strategic • • • • Expanding business partnerships Reducing time to market Enhancing customer relationships Lowering transaction cost
• Standardising product development process Business • Reducing operational cost • Simplifying development and implementation of new applications • Expanding volume of distribution channels • Enhancing quality of service to agents and brokers • Investment protection from integrating legacy applications • Replacing paper-based processes with electronic collaboration
Technology
To learn more about the benefits Helvetia gained from their SOA approach, read the full Thoughtware Worldwide study at www.hp.com/go/soa. Or simply get in touch with your local HP representative to discuss your own roadmap to SOA. It could change the way you do business forever.
HP Solutions for the Adaptive Enterprise
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