Published on 31-May-2011
Validated on 07 Dec 2012
"We look to partner with market leaders. The IBM WebSphere BPM Suite and Business Rule Management System (BRMS) will enable us to maintain agile processes and improve operational efficiency. " - Jürgen Rudolph, IT Querschnitt, Versicherungskammer Bayern Insurance (VKB)
Customer:
Versicherungskammer Bayern (VKB)
Industry:
Insurance
Deployment country:
Germany
Solution:
Business Process Management (BPM)
Overview
VKB improves speed to market and agility with IBM WebSphere BPM Suite and Business RuleManagement System
Business need:
Disjointed processes made it challenging to ensure consistent enforcement of corporate and risk guidelines across channels and divisions. Building processes that deliver greater transparency, agility and speed across the enterprise was critical to improving operational efficiency and supporting future growth targets.
Solution:
As a first step, VKB chose to address its policy cancellation and notification process, which is built in a service oriented architecture (SOA) based on IBM WebSphere Business Process Management (BPM) Suite and WebSphere® ILOG® JRules business rule management system (BRMS).
Benefits:
• 80 percent reduction in manual processing
• More than 50 percent gain in speed to market (rule and process changes implemented in days vs. months)
• Comprehensive audit trails of rules and decisions: standardized approach to modeling and implementing business processes and rules
Case Study
Versicherungskammer Bayern (VKB), a leading insurance company in Germany offers a diversified portfolio of products which spans multiple lines of business including general insurance, health, retirement and life coverage. By 2010, the company had approximately 50 million customers and 22,200 branch offices including regional savings and home loan banks.
Overview
Versicherungskammer Bayern
www.vkb.de
Munich, Germany
Solution Components
Industry
• Insurance
Products
• IBM® DB2®
• IBM WebSphere® Business Modeler
• IBM WebSphere Business Monitor
• IBM WebSphere ILOG® JRules®
• IBM WebSphere Integration Developer
• IBM WebSphere Portal Server
• IBM WebSphere Process Server
The need
Like most diversified institutions, VKB is comprised of several businesses and divisions. Each group has its own set of business processes, channels, IT systems and a myriad of applications. In this type of environment, it was difficult to take a consolidated approach to aligning the company’s IT objectives with business strategies. Disjointed processes made it challenging to ensure consistent enforcement of corporate and risk guidelines across channels and divisions. Building processes that deliver greater transparency, agility and speed across the enterprise was critical to improving operational efficiency and supporting future growth targets.
The solution
As a first step, VKB chose to address its policy cancellation and notification process, which is built in a service oriented architecture (SOA) based on IBM WebSphere Business Process Management (BPM) Suite and WebSphere® ILOG® JRules business rule management system (BRMS). With the new BPM and BRMS-based solution, VKB can consistently enforce its policy renewal and cancellation guidelines to identify whether a policy should be terminated and what steps and procedures are required to process the cancellation request. Moreover, based on the policyholder’s history and contractual guidelines, the carrier can easily identify if the cancellation request should be routed to a sales representative for follow up and trigger alerts and notifications as required. The process covers life products with plans to add non life and health insurance lines of businesses. The agile architecture has enabled VKB to take an incremental approach to process optimization and expand the usage of BPM and BRMS to other processes in the near future.
The benefit
• 80 percent reduction in manual processing
• More than 50 percent gain in speed to market (rule and process changes implemented in days vs. months)
• Comprehensive audit trails of rules and decisions: standardized approach to modeling and implementing business processes and rules
For more information
Please contact your local IBM sales representative or visit ibm.com/websphere.
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Software:
DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition, WebSphere Portal Server, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Business Modeler, WebSphere ILOG JRules, WebSphere Integration Developer
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2011 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America April 2011 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, WebSphere, ILOG and JRules are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. The information contained in this documentation is provided for informational purposes only. While efforts were made to verify the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in this documentation, it is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. In addition, this information is based on IBM’s current product plans and strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without notice. IBM shall not be responsible for any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related to, this documentation or any other documentation. Nothing contained in this documentation is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or representations from IBM (or its suppliers or licensors), or altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement governing the use of IBM software. References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics may vary by customer. WSC14276-USEN-00