Published on 25-Jan-2012
"The new system makes it possible, for example, to track the cost of a project from any point in its history – there’s no special searching required to find out who spent how much, and what it was spent on. As a result of this, everybody has access to the information they need." - Attila Horváth, Deputy IT CEO, Groupama Garancia
Customer:
Groupama Garancia Hungary
Industry:
Insurance
Deployment country:
Hungary
Solution:
Business-to-Business, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence
Overview
The Hungarian branch of French-based Groupama Garancia, one of Europe’s fifteen largest insurance companies, had grown to the point where its IT systems were no longer capable of satisfying the information needs of its business departments. Employees were growing increasingly frustrated with the company’s existing reporting systems, which required a significant degree of manual intervention and slowed down the workflow process.
Business need:
Groupama Garancia Hungary’s reporting systems were no longer capable of satisfying its information needs, and reporting required a lot of manual intervention - slowing down the company’s workflow processes. More worryingly, contradictory data would occasionally crop up in the system, demanding significant time to clarify. The company wanted to generate automatic reports which ensured a single version of the truth.
Solution:
Groupama implemented IBM® Cognos® 8 Business Intelligence software on top of a new data warehouse system built from the ground up. Data was migrated from the company’s legacy systems using IBM InfoSphere® software. Today, all reporting is done in the IBM Cognos BI solution.
Benefits:
Improves cost-effectiveness, as less time and money is spent on manual data processing. Ensures everyone in the company sees a single version of the truth, reducing time taken to close each month. Empowers people to generate their own reports, increasing information integration throughout the business.
Case Study
The Hungarian branch of French-based Groupama Garancia, one of Europe’s fifteen largest insurance companies, had grown to the point where its IT systems were no longer capable of satisfying the information needs of its business departments. Employees were growing increasingly frustrated with the company’s existing reporting systems, which required a significant degree of manual intervention and slowed down the workflow process.
An additional source of frustration was the system’s tendency to occasionally produce contradictory data, which demanded a considerable amount of time and energy to clarify, and further hampered efficiency.
Groupama Garancia decided to replace its heterogeneous data systems with a professional, user-friendly data warehouse solution. The new system needed to be capable of providing the company’s decision-makers, employees and supervisory agencies with reliable, accurate and up-to-date information.
Built on IBM technology
Groupama Garancia selected its supplier by a public tender, and IBM demonstrated its own industry-specific data warehouse model – the Insurance Information Warehouse. According to Mihály Bácsfalvi, Financial Deputy CEO at Groupama Garancia, “Out of all the solutions put forward by the individual vendors we looked at, IBM’s proved to be best suited to our requirements.”
Drawing on its extensive business intelligence experience, IBM was able to deliver the solution in a short time while mitigating the risks usually involved in building an entirely new data warehouse from the ground up.
An IBM team used IBM InfoSphere software to migrate the data from the company’s legacy system, and IBM Cognos Business Intelligence was installed to analyse the information in the new data warehouse. Groupama Garancia now prepares all of its reports using this solution.
A cost-effective solution
Thanks to the IBM Cognos solution, Groupama Garancia has empowered all of its users to access, extract and analyse the data they need. In addition, IBM Cognos pre-summarises data, accelerating the reporting process.
“The new system makes it possible, for example, to track the cost of a project from any point in its history – there’s no special searching required to find out who spent how much, and what it was spent on,” says Attila Horváth, IT Deputy CEO of Groupama Garancia. “As a result of this, everybody has access to the information they need, whether they are working in controlling, finance, accounting or the actuarial team.”
Currently, 150 people at the insurance company prepare reports using IBM Cognos. One noticeable improvement over the previous situation is that the process works with greater automation, and requires significantly less human intervention.
The amount of human input required is also reduced by the unified data warehouse. Because the company now only uses one analytics system, staff can be sure that they are seeing one version of the truth. This means that the processes of monthly and annual closing take less time and reports are available more quickly, with a significant reduction in the possibility of erroneous data.
As less time and money is spent on manual processing of data, the company has experienced improvements in overall cost-effectiveness. Additionally, the reports generated by the new IBM Cognos system are more detailed and accurate, ensuring that managers always make decisions based on up-to-date information.
About IBM Business Analytics
IBM Business Analytics software delivers actionable insights decision-makers need to achieve better business performance. IBM offers a comprehensive, unified portfolio of business intelligence, predictive and advanced analytics, financial performance and strategy management, governance, risk and compliance and analytic applications.
With IBM software, companies can spot trends, patterns and anomalies, compare “what if” scenarios, predict potential threats and opportunities, identify and manage key business risks and plan, budget and forecast resources. With these deep analytic capabilities our customers around the world can better understand, anticipate and shape business outcomes.
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012. IBM Hungary Ltd., Neumann János u. 1., H-1117 Budapest, Hungary. Produced in Hungary, January 2012. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Cognos and InfoSphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of other IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks, or service marks of others. IBM and Business Process Consulting are separate companies and each is responsible for its own products. Neither IBM nor Business Process Consulting makes any warranties, express or implied, concerning the other’s products. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s product, program or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program or service may be used instead. All customer examples cited represent how some customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and used parts. In some cases, the hardware product may not be new and may have been previously installed. Regardless, IBM warranty terms apply. This publication is for general guidance only. Photographs may show design models.