A life insurance company: Releasing a new product line 11 months early with an agile development methodology
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- IBM Rational Asset Manager
- IBM Rational Build Forge
- IBM DOORS Next Generation
- IBM Rational Team Concert
Tech Stack
- IBM Analytics
- Agile Development
- DevOps
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Revenue Growth
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Process Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Predictive Quality Analytics
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
The customer is a leading life insurance company that aimed to increase its life insurance sales in the United States by 260 percent. To help achieve the goal, the company made an agreement with a large distribution company. Under the agreement, the organization would begin offering its life insurance products to the distribution company’s more than 130 member firms and their customers. As part of the agreement, the insurer needed to launch a new product line, including a new web portal, within just 18 months.
The Challenge
The life insurance company aimed to increase its life insurance sales in the United States by 260 percent. To achieve this, the company made an agreement with a large distribution company. Under the agreement, the organization would begin offering its life insurance products to the distribution company’s more than 130 member firms and their customers. As part of the agreement, the insurer needed to launch a new product line, including a new web portal, within just 18 months. Meeting the deadline posed a tough challenge, and the company decided to shift from waterfall to agile development to accelerate its development processes.
The Solution
The company adopted a DevOps approach, supported by IBM Analytics solutions—transforming its organization from 100 percent waterfall development to 75 percent agile development. The software factory entails five key steps: examining the product backlog, carving out a release backlog, creating a release sprint plan, executing the sprints and validating each release. The company used the DevOps approach to optimize the entire software delivery lifecycle. After each team identifies what it will be delivering for the month, it works to deliver continuously in two-week sprints.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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