Highlights
The strategy designed by HCLTech Digital Foundation consulting team enabled the client to decommission legacy systems according to the planned timeline and put the client on the path to saving several millions of licenses and operational costs.
The EasyX framework made it cost-feasible to spin up an integration instance to temporarily manage data between Clarity and a legacy system – a cheap way to manage transparency and data consistency during a decommissioning period.
About the Client
The client is a major European insurance company offering a comprehensive range of insurance, pensions, investments and services. It is represented in approximately 30 countries worldwide, focusing mainly on Europe and Asia. The client employs more than 25,000 staff and manages nearly €130 billion in investments, with an insurance revenue of nearly €20 billion. The client consists of several business divisions, for whom the technology activities are currently being managed by a Technology & Services Management (ET&SM) division.
The Challenge
No alignment and a patchwork of solutions create worldwide headaches
To tackle these issues, the client created a new technology organization (ET&SM) to operate globally, using the same processes and common tools. Clarity was chosen to fill in the project portfolio management function alongside other tools, such as SAP, for the financial function.
The initial target organization consisted of three technology hubs. Each hub represented a local legal or organizational unit, with resource managers adhering to local laws and simultaneously following one single global process for project portfolio management (PPM), thus allowing for global project staffing. Additionally, future needs would require onboarding more technology hubs in other countries into the same global Clarity instance.
The design of the new PPM tool was to be based on a clean slate, considering a minimum set of key requirements from the existing technology hubs and kept as simple as possible. The guiding principle of simplicity should result in the blueprint of one common global Clarity instance based on industry best practices and offering best-of-breed capabilities fitting the client landscape.
It also required the existing technology hubs to migrate some data from existing and running projects into the new global Clarity instance.
Following all the preceding guidelines should result in achieving the goal of establishing a single entity responsible for the delivery of all projects, support and maintenance activities related to technology services for the client.
The Solution
The path to a unified, scalable global system and delighted users
An old saying states, "How does one eat an elephant? Bite by bite…" So, it was done. The client and the consulting team recognized that this was a significant effort, so it was structured in bite-sized chunks. In the first phase, the design of the global platform, Clarity, was established with all relevant stakeholders. The business process owners and representatives of the different technology hubs were also included. All relevant stakeholders confirmed and supported the design and represented a common denominator covering the basics of the partly new global process. Some individual items that were not entirely clear were left open to fill in along the way, guided by best practices and the implementation team's experience. In the first phase, the main process areas covered were project management, portfolio management, resource management, financial management and time booking.
The next phase was the actual build of the system, a task that was efficiently executed by a highly experienced team. In a relatively short time, the basic Clarity was implemented. Upon delivery, it was not just a blueprint, but a fully functional system, ready to be utilized. The usage of the system was also strategically planned in phases, with each phase representing the onboarding of another service hub. This systematic approach ensured a smooth and efficient implementation process.
With the Clarity cloud platform hosted by HCLTech, we have not only implemented a cost-effective solution, but also a scalable one. This system is designed to grow as the business requires, providing a sense of security and future readiness for our stakeholders.
Several integrations were expected for the global system. The design already accounted for a flexible, standard way of setting up integration from and to Clarity using the EasyX framework. That proved to be a good strategy, as the number of required integrations grew during the evolution of the project. It was very easy to spin up any other integration. With three active service hubs, there are already more than twenty integrations, managing the dataflows for various functions and objects from and to other systems in the client environment. Some of those integrations are temporal, to cover an intermediate period when legacy systems are decommissioned while the data is already relevant for global Clarity. More integrations are expected when more service hubs are onboarded. Moreover, the client can also leverage the framework to cater for data loads from legacy systems where required.
Reporting was also structured and standardized. Three key channels were established: ad hoc in-tool reporting for simple operation data to support user processes, advanced reporting for smooth reports using mocked-up reports (e.g., project status reporting) and executive reporting through an external data warehouse. This approach resulted in tailored reporting for each type of user.
The Benefits
Clarity solves the puzzle of efficiency, savings and transparency
As a result of this implementation approach, the joint client and HCLTech team delivered the first four phases on time, within budget and with the needed capabilities. This allowed the client to decommission legacy systems according to the planned timeline and start to save several millions of licenses and operational costs.
New and existing users could use the global Clarity instance to work in a unified way. With the EasyX framework, it had become cost-feasible to spin up an integration instance to temporarily manage data between Clarity and a legacy system, offering a cheap way to manage transparency and data consistency during a decommissioning period.
Traditionally, Clarity is a tool where stakeholders from many different parts of the organization collaborate. The global Clarity project also functioned as a catalyst for streamlining the processes in the client organization as well as breaking down the silos between various departments.
After four phases, the client is continuing to onboard new service hubs, expand Clarity's reach, allowing more employees to collaborate directly and generate more transparency in the client organization. This way, staffing is made more efficient, and lead times have decreased.
Clarity emerged as the missing puzzle piece for this client, connecting continents and processes. The legacy of this Clarity project is a completed picture of efficiency.
