hp success story

Building a state-of-the-art e-Business platform for the

Helvetia Patria Group

With Hewlett-Packard as its consulting and integration partner,the internationally active Helvetia Patria Group is in the processof building a state-of-the-art e-Business platform. Brokers, banksand independent agents are now able to use an attractiveInternet channel to access the products of the Helvetia PatriaGroup. Beyond this, the new Business-to-Business solutionprovides a user-friendly information system containing data onclients, policies and claims.Helvetia Patria is an international all-branch insurance group,with subsidiaries, branches and business interests in central andsouthern Europe. The Group was formed from the merger ofHelvetia (a non-life insurer) and Patria Life Insurance. The St.Gallen-based company employs around 5000 staff andachieved gross premium income of CHF 4.6 billion in 2001. InSwitzerland, Helvetia Patria’s 30 offices provide compre-hensiveinsurance and financial service support for private individualsand companies either alone or together with local partners

such as Helsana, Raiffeisen, Vontobeland the cantonal banks.

The need for innovation

As part of a strategic situation overviewof the Helvetia Patria Group held in1999, there was a loud call forinnovation. It emerged that the greatestpotential for this was in the e-Businessarea, and the Group decided to makea central e-Business infrastructureavailable for its country organizationsin Switzerland, Germany, Spain,Austria, Italy and France. The key toachieving maximum utility would bethrough the central provision of theinfrastructure and generic processes, aswell as the centralized development ofstandard components.Each company would take up a localversion of the solution, or developcountry-specific solutions on the basis ofthe existing infrastructure. On costgrounds, it made no sense to set upseparate infrastructures for eachcountry.

Required:a group-wide platform andknow-how development withinthe organization

The goal of Helvetia Patria was to builda Group-wide e-Business platform withinEurope and to provide the countrybranches with business-specific e-Insurance business modules. Theinteractive solution for the countrieswould be managed centrally by theGroup. With this new infrastructure,Helvetia Patria aimed to achieve asignificant technological leap forward,as well as to offer its employees aninnovative and motivating workenvironment. A key component wouldbe the buy-in of all the countries, as thisproject would be one of the firstoperational initiatives with majorimportance for the various countryoperations. Beyond this, they sought tobring it to market as soon as possible,through provision of a comprehensivestaff training program. In addition,development needed to be possible

in-house, since Helvetia Patria wantedto maintain its independence and buildthe necessary know-how within thecompany.

Selection of Hewlett-Packard

Running parallel to these strategicprocesses was the evaluation of asuitable consulting and integrationpartner. There were ten suppliers on thefinal shortlist, each of which waspresented by Helvetia Patria with abusiness case to solve. Based on theresults, the shortlist was reduced to twoproviders – one of which was Hewlett-Packard, which was finally selected.

The reason for Hewlett-Packard’sselection is explained by Didier Beck,Chief Technology Officer of the eCenterof the Helvetia Patria Group: “We likedthe fact that HP offered a step-by-stepsolution, so that they could guaranteequick time to market. Our HP contactswere competent, trustworthy, andinspired our confidence, and they wereobviously used to working in aninternational environment. In addition,they had a comprehensive knowledgeof insurance. We were convinced bythe arguments for the HP-Nimiusplatform and the basic solution. Not

least, the references from Bank Vontobeland the Raiffeisen banks encouragedmanagement make the decision to gowith HP, particularly as we had neverworked with HP before.”

Development of an eCenterin Zurich

In order to better coordinate theirinternational activities, Helvetia Patriaopened a competence andcoordination center – the so-calledeCenter – in Zurich. The eCenter isresponsible for planning andcoordination of the e-Business project,assists with its realization, and developsrules and procedures for working withthe new technologies within theindividual country operations. Thanks tothis central organization, it is possibleto draw on past experience and ensurethat this flows immediately into allsubsequent projects. Beyond this, theeCenter is responsible for the creationand operation of the Europe-wideinfrastructure.

Efficient project development

In order to test the internationality,processes, architecture and finally, thesolution itself, Helvetia Patria and HP setup a pilot installation. The first testphase demonstrated the potential of thechosen architecture. The prototype alsotested the technical components. Inparticular, the integration mechanismswere extremely important, since theHelvetia Patria Group had a veryheterogeneous system landscape.

Developers from all the countryorganizations were trained at theeCenter in Zurich, where the first know-how transfers took place. Dr. ChristophNiquille, head of the eCenter, recalls:“People were very enthusiastic and wewere able to start working actively toconvince them about the project. At thestart of 2001 we invited all the countryCIOs to a workshop that was a greatsuccess.” With the completion of atraining concept and course structure,and the cooperation of IT specialists

performance are guaranteed, but alsothat a professional 24 x 7 operation forall countries is secured. (See theseparate flyer for the outsourcing userstory.)

Practical, well-accepted solutions

Helvetia Patria now has a highlyflexible, multi-channel e-Insuranceplatform, which optimally protects itsprevious investments in its operatingsystem. Helvetia Patria’s employeeshave fully accepted the new solutionand are highly motivated to work withthe new technology and to profit fromthe competence of HP’s people. Asbefore, application support remains inZurich, and here also, there are noproblems with acceptance, sinceemployees from the countryorganizations were able to developexcellent relationships with colleaguesin Zurich during their training.

Future plans

The goal of the Helvetia Patria Group isto extend the solution further and to linkit with the back-end system, in order toenable online requests for clientinformation, policies and claims, etc.The development of a solution to enablethe completion of on-line insurancecontracts is also under discussion. Theyare also considering developing salessupport CRM (Customer RelationshipManagement) tools, and broadeningthe existing proposal system from aBusiness-to-Business to a Business-to-Customer solution.

from the country organizations ininternational projects, Helvetia Patriawas able to create the necessarytechnical knowledge and ensure broadsupport.

Making life easier for brokersand agents

The first project, which developed inparallel the e-Platform as well as theprocesses and standards for theeCenter, was the country-specificaccounting and simplified establishmentof index-linked life insurance offers viathe Internet. This involved the integrationof existing, usually host-basedaccounting modules into the e-Platformapplication, in order to profit fromexisting developments andachievements. Thanks to the newBusiness-to-Business solution, insurancebrokers and agents now have accessvia the Internet to all Helvetia Patria’sproducts. Furthermore, they can accessinformation about clients, policies andclaims. Both this information system andthe product catalogue are now beingcontinually added to and enhancedwith additional information.

Challenges for IT specialists

The individual companies as well as theGroup place different demands on thenew infrastructure. In order not todisadvantage the smaller countries, itwas necessary to find a commondenominator. In addition, the productstructures were not the same in allcountries. These facts required a flexibleproduct catalogue of a type that wasnot available commercially with all thedesired functionalities. As a result, theIT specialists had to develop a suitablemodule based on the internationalACORD and VAA standards. Today theall-branch product catalogue is fullyavailable and enjoys wide acceptance;and although the work needed toachieve this was initially under-estimated, everyone agrees that it hasbeen worth it. Comprehensive resourcesalso had to be invested to broaden theNimius solution from a banking to an

insurance solution.Last but not least, a great deal ofexperience was collected in regard toknowledge sharing, which forms acritical component of such projects.Today, the employees have anoutstanding level of training and areable to work independently at a veryhigh level.

Demanding tasks for Hewlett-Packard …

HP supported the Helvetia Patria Groupboth in the creation of the eCenter andthe establishment of the e-Platform, aswell as in the realization of the firstprojects. These included the applicationconcept, training of Helvetia Patria staff,coaching and implementation. Inaddition, HP was responsible forhardware, monitoring, the establishmentof high security requirements, and forthe Nimius E3 platform with ODS(Operational Data Store). An importantfurther task was the introduction ofHelvetia Patria employees to the newestInternet technologies, so that thesecould be used in future independentfollow-up projects.

… professionally performed

So it was no wonder that the HelvetiaPatria Group chose HP’s consulting andintegration services and outsourced thehosting of their entire e-Businessinfrastructure, including both theplatform and applications, to HP. Thismeans that not only stability and

Didier Beck adds: “There wasvery intensive partner-like

cooperation between HP andthe country organizations. Thecountries are enthusiastic about

the Nimius solution and arehappy to work with it. Know-how transfer is progressing

well. This is certainly helped bythe fact that the cultures of

both companies are a good fit.In addition, HP applied just the

right amount of pressure toensure that the projectprogressed positively.”

Dr. Christoph Niquille is satisfiedwith what has been achieved:

“HP has delivered excellent value,and HP’s insurance knowledgehelped enormously to drive the

solution. The country organizationshave also acknow-ledged this. Notleast, we give top marks to HP fortheir step-by-step concept and theconsequent early time to market.

Plus – and this is also veryimportant – we always haveenjoyed an excellent working

relationship.”

hp success story

You can find further information about theadvantages Hewlett-Packard can offer your

company from your local HP representative or at:http://www.hp.com

The technical data contained in this document may bechanged without prior notice.

© Copyright Hewlett-Packard Company 2001.All rights reserved. Reproduction, adaptation or translation

without prior written permission is prohibited, except as allowed under the copyright laws.

Client overview:

Branche: InsuranceName: Helvetia Patria Insurance

Head Office: St. Gallen, SwitzerlandFounded: 1858

URL: www.helvetiapatria.com